Bluetooth Won't Replace the Headphone Jack -- Walled Gardens Will (theverge.com)

Last year, when it was rumoured that the then upcoming iPhone models -- 7 and 7 Plus -- won't have the 3.5mm audio jack, The Verge's Nilay Patel wrote that if Apple does do it, it would be a user-hostile and stupid move. When those iPhone models were official announced, they indeed didn't have the audio jack. Earlier this week, Android-maker Google announced the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones that also don't feature the decades-old audio jack either, a move that would likely push rest of the smartphone makers to adopt a similar change. The rationale behind killing the traditional headphones jack, both Apple and Google say, is to move to an improved technology: Bluetooth. But there is another motive at play here, it appears. Patel, writes for The Verge: As the headphone jack disappears, the obvious replacement isn't another wire with a proprietary connector like Apple's Lightning or the many incompatible and strange flavors of USB-C audio. It's Bluetooth. And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons. Newer phones like the iPhone 8, Galaxy S8, and the Pixel 2 have Bluetooth 5, which promises to be better, but 1. There are literally no Bluetooth 5 headphones out yet, and 2. we have definitely heard that promise before. So we'll see. To improve Bluetooth, platform vendors like Apple and Google are riffing on top of it, and that means they're building custom solutions. And building custom solutions means they're taking the opportunity to prioritize their own products, because that is a fair and rational thing for platform vendors to do. Unfortunately, what is fair and rational for platform vendors isn't always great for markets, competition, or consumers. And at the end of this road, we will have taken a simple, universal thing that enabled a vibrant market with tons of options for every consumer, and turned it into yet another limited market defined by ecosystem lock-in. The playbook is simple: last year, Apple dropped the headphone jack and replaced it with its W1 system, which is basically a custom controller chip and software management layer for Bluetooth. The exemplary set of W1 headphones is, of course, AirPods, but Apple also owns Beats, and there are a few sets of W1 Beats headphones available as well. You can still use regular Bluetooth headphones with an iPhone, and you can use AirPods as regular Bluetooth headphones, but the combination iPhone / W1 experience is obviously superior to anything else on the market. [...] Google's version of this is the Pixel Buds, a set of over-ear neckbuds that serve as basic Bluetooth headphones but gain additional capabilities when used with certain phones. Seamless fast pairing? You need Android N or higher, which most Android phones don't have.

Comments

Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

So, does the new Bluetooth standards fix latency problems? Specifically, when watching video (hooked up to a monitor via HDMI) and listening to a bluetooth headset, the audio sync is *always* off.

Re:Latency

[DontBeAMoran]

Of course audio sync is always off. Light is faster than sound.

Re: Latency

[Type44Q]

And of course there's no way to sync the two, given the two totally-different transmission types... or not.

Re: Latency

[rainmouse]

Arguably the tiniest of delays in one of the two signals could change the sound of carefully engineered music. I wonder if two independent audio sources like the earphones with a few milliseconds delay on one of the two stereo channels would create audio phasing in your brain. ;)

Re:Latency

[ichthus]

So, does the new Bluetooth standards fix latency problems? Specifically, when watching video (hooked up to a monitor via HDMI) and listening to a bluetooth headset, the audio sync is *always* off.

Welp, If you limit your watching to anime there'll be no problem.

Re: Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

You dont seem to get it - out brains are VERY good at fixing small audio sync problems, because the sync delay is viewer distance related.
And I am not talking about media here - in the real works.
That person standing across the room? they are out of sync whenthey talk to you, but they become more synchronised as they walk closer.

And no, you cannot correct audio and visual sync for two viewers, unless they are at the same distancy, by definition.

Of course some technologies to stuff it up badly and have terribly long delays, however most wireless audio standards are not an issue here,
in fact they are often faster than the audio path across the room.

Historically the problem is the terrible TERRIBLE low quality BT codecs. even the best of BT4 are not great (looking at you, aptX), BT5? we will see..

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

While that is true, it isn't really what is at the core of latency problems in digital playback systems. The problem is that audio and video are decoded separately, and from there take separate paths to get to the user. If you are designing a complete system, you can add artificial delays to sync them up, but once they leave your device as digital signals they are subject to additional delays in the systems that handle them at the other end, which you have no control over. Open source playback software usually has a way to control the delay, but for consumer products, that is considered too geeky and difficult to use, so it will be left out.

Re:Latency

[Anubis IV]

You fix it in software, not the standard. Decent devices already implement a delay on the video signal so that it matches up with the audio. I suspect the implementation isn’t much different than what’s necessary with TVs and AVRs that support an Audio Return Channel (a.k.a. ARC, i.e. allowing you to plug a device directly into your TV while having the audio signal get routed to your AVR via the HDMI cable coming from it, and then on to your speakers).

For video games you’re kinda screwed unless the manufacturer implements proprietary extensions to the standard (e.g. Apple’s AirPods do some custom stuff to make pairing and latency less of a problem, which I think they’ve said they plan to share), but this is already a solved problem for watching video footage.

Re:Latency

[green1]

Don't worry, they've also removed the ability to hook up by HDMI while they were at it. No new phones support MHL for HDMI, and the alternatives over USB C don't seem to be popular either.

Unfortunately new phones today are missing a lot of functionality that was common only a couple of years ago. I'm due for a new phone, but until a phone comes out that can at least match the functionality of my 3 year old one, I'm not switching.

For reference, I currently have a Samsung Galaxy Note 4:
- user replaceable battery (how do you think I'm still using a phone this old?)
- large screen (Samsung's note 8 has a narrower screen despite a bigger marketing number because they screwed up the aspect ratio)
- HDMI output (I need ALL apps to be able to be seen on a real screen, not just the small handful that support casting)
- normal headphone jack with no dongle required (no forgetting the dongle, any cheap headphones work, as do cheap cables to connect to any stereo)
- expandable storage

Several phones have some of these features, I don't think any modern flagship has all of them. So for now, I'm not giving up my current phone.

Re: Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in exactly the same boat with the note 4. Can't find a phone that has the removable battery, fast processor , headphone jack and the touch buttons. Hope the note will last some time. I have a 10000 mAh extended battery I bought for a trip and since it isn't bothering me I use it daily.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if trolling or stupid.

Re:Latency

[DontBeAMoran]

Trying to make a stupid joke about light speed vs sound speed but nobody got it and went into stupid rants.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're making a joke. In case not, the speed of sound is irrelevant as a potential cause of audio latency here because Bluetooth's signal travels at the speed of light and the Bluetooth headset is attached directly to the viewer's head. Speed of sound makes a difference to lip sync only when the viewer is at least ~8m away from the sound source; when you're not watching lips you can get away with almost double that distance.

To answer the GP AC's question, while the new Bluetooth standard doesn't fix the latency problem, newer codecs make it somewhat less severe. Bluetooth audio is mostly sent using the SBC codec, which adds around 200 milliseconds of latency in addition to whatever latency is inherent to Bluetooth (for decent lip sync you need less than 22ms). The delay is necessary because Bluetooth doesn't have enough bandwidth to transmit audio at decent quality without compression, and the encoder needs a bit of lead time. apX halves that, with 100ms latency, and it has a low-latency mode with only 40ms.

If the player software is aware that you're transmitting over Bluetooth it can simply play the audio 100ms ahead of the video. For live media streams, it could instead delay the video by 100ms. For live video calls it can use low-latency apX and delay the video by 40ms. So, while there's no escaping latency, there are at least some effective ways to cope with it.

Re: Latency

[Askmum]

It all depends on the latency introduced. You can't really communicate with someone 100 metres away, so it is quite useless to talk about that and when when you do, you *know* sound will be delayed because of the distance. Someone standing on the other side of the room (let's say 10 metres) introduces 0.03 seconds of delay. That's hardly noticable. I have a TV that sometimes adds half a second delay between image and sound. That's maddening when you try to watch a snooker match.

DIY

[syn3rg]

We will all have to resort to modding

Re: DIY

[Anonymous Coward]

*whoosh*

Re: DIY

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off communist

$300 headphones

[HBI]

Not going to buy a new set because Apple - or Google wants me to. Fuck them. I'd sooner switch cell phones. Eventually, the manufacturers will get the message.

Re:$300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the part where the unwashed masses can't be arsed to care, so the money never stops flowing.

Re:$300 headphones

[Ol Olsoc]

Not going to buy a new set because Apple - or Google wants me to. Fuck them. I'd sooner switch cell phones. Eventually, the manufacturers will get the message.

Good, then you'll be happy. I've used plain old headphones with my iPhone 7.

But hey, it's good to see a man of your convictions, have you considered a feature phone?

Re: $300 headphones

[Type44Q]

Eventually, the manufacturers will get the message.

Or die a suitably painful death; I'm hoping for the latter.

Re:$300 headphones

[Gavagai80]

Personally, I prefer $15 bluetooth headphones over wired. It's not a choice between $300 or wired.

Re:$300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly... yes, it'll be exactly like that. People DGAF about SD slots and replacable batteries, so those features went away. So too will it be for headphone jacks. Can't even remember the last time I've seen someone using them. I know the slashdot crowd likes to imagine their own preferences represent the mass market, but they don't. Most people don't care about those features. In fact, if slashdot hates something, that's a really good sign it will succeed in the market.

Re:$300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't mind the additional cables, there are mobile compatible USB headphone DAC/amplifiers available.

Re: $300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

You're breaking up. What? Can you hear me now? ::battery low::

Re:$300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like when they got the message about the non-removable batteries you still see people complain about.

Maybe not then, eh?

Re:$300 headphones

[epine]

Eventually, the manufacturers will get the message.

Yes, nothing sends a message like 3% of your least-profitable customers banding together to found an organic juniper berry & desert reclamation profit-sharing co-operative.

Re:$300 headphones

[HBI]

It'll go in phases. Someone will eventually fill the need. They'll pretend the loss of profits is something else until someone achieves the magic formula.

Re:$300 headphones

[foradoxium]

I use the headphone jack nearly every day...as its the only (cheap) way to use my phone with my car speakers.

Re:$300 headphones

[blindseer]

I used to think the same thing.

I don't know how much I spent on it but I got this box for my truck that when installed behind the radio allows me to hear audio from my iOS devices and have some control over the music. Not perfect since it's a hack of the Sirius interface on the radio to get my iPod working with it. That was a bit expensive, compared to using a simple headphone input port it was very expensive.

I've started to look for a new car stereo, not for that truck though. I've found that many offer some means to get audio from a pocket computer, often multiple means. (Let's be honest, these things aren't music players or phones any more, they are computers that fit in a pocket.)

It's almost hard to find a car stereo that does not offer a USB port for plugging in a phone or storage device to play music. Often this is in addition to Bluetooth audio. You'll probably find a pair of old school RCA jacks on the back too for connecting to whatever you like. Oh horrors of you have to buy a $6 RCA to 1/8 inch headphone jack that's long enough to run from the back of the stereo to where you can reach it from the driver's seat.

I remember WAY back when cassettes were being replaced by CD players in car stereos. Being the poor college student that I was I bought one of those cassette adapters so I could hear my portable music device through the speakers of my old car. Not great but cheaper and easier than replacing the stereo. Today I find it difficult to believe people will have difficulty finding a means to get audio from a car made in the last 5 or 10 years from a pocket computer made in the last couple years.

It seems rare to even find a headphone jack input on car stereos. If you don't have a headphone jack input then I'd think you can use USB or Bluetooth. If you have something so old that it has no headphone jack, USB, or Bluetooth, then I have a cassette adapter around here somewhere I can give you.

Re:$300 headphones

[ChristTrekker]

Looking back, it seems insane that auto manufacturers didn't have mini-plug input a looong time ago. "Here's a nook to set your portable player - walkman, discman, future-things-not-invented-yet - and here's the input port."

Re:$300 headphones

[ChristTrekker]

Complete agreement. I have a 2011 Honda - certainly not an old car, but no Bluetooth. I also have an iPod nano, now two years old. A short USB and a short miniplug cable keeps me charged and tuned. Without a miniplug on my player, I'd have to use some funky adapter (more money) and probably not be able to charge simultaneously, either.

Re:$300 headphones

[antdude]

What if all cellphones do it? :( Wait, cellphones? You meant smartphones. ;P

Re:$300 headphones

[rtb61]

I prefer wired because they attach to my phone with short lead and are connected together and I wont lose them. I could imagine dropping headphone and being saved from the fall and being trodden, by that connection, regularly. Also the ear phones are then powered and no battery hassles. I don't care about what the hell the connector is and long as the phone has two, one at the top and one at the bottom, convenience and the connectors are non proprietary. Blue tooth is handy but not when you are dicking with batteries, than it is just another hassle.

Re:$300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought another iPhone 6 today. If it becomes so slow as to be highly unusable, I will ditch iPhone (I have ditched iPad after Air 2 - owned 5 iPads total, after they made the glass repair close to the full cost of a new iPad by gluing the glass, digitizer and LCD), and I ditched AppleTV after I had a failing remote (it just, um, stopped worked for no reason at all one day, replacements costs nearly same as a new AppleTV). I WILL ditch iPhone for Android if they don't include a dedicated physical audio port (separate from power cord). That's what I want, and in this case, I don't need Apple to tell me what I want. I knew when I bought Apple TV, iPad and iPhone, and I still kew when I removed likely $15,000 over ten years in apps, hardware upgrades and services. SORRY APPLE.

And Google just did a move that may work short term. BUT, I will never buy Pixel until I havea dedicated Audio port. Enjoy your glory while a lot of the Apple early adopters move on anyone we can influence, just as we did when I owned the very first iPhone 3G. Google has less Karma, so they lost less (no lost income, just less market share and scale)

Re: $300 headphones

[VendettaMF]

Piracy. It's always the damned pirates!

Re: $300 headphones

[guruevi]

Most car stereos in the last 20 years do actually, even stock ones, pull back the unit and there will almost guaranteed be an aux input either using RCA jacks or across one of the pins.

Re:$300 headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

So, one would assume, you leave the 3.5mm cable in your car yes? So there is no problem ALSO leaving the adaptor needed attached to this wire and also in your car correct?

Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

> And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons.

Does it? I have bluetooth headphones. They are not made by a company affiliated to either my computer or my telephone, the two devices I use them with. I turn my headphones on and audio starts coming out of them. The audio sounds fine. What part of my experience sucks?

Most of the author's complaints seem to revolve around how most fast-pairing protocols are currently proprietary, but... pairing your headphones is something you don't do very often, so it's at best a minor inconvenience.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

Does it?

Yes.

The audio sounds fine.

I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth does not (and never will) have the bandwidth for the higher resolution audio files (flac for one). What you hear instead is shitty reproduction compared to using similar priced wired headphones. Not all people notice the difference.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Ol Olsoc]

Does it?

Yes.

The audio sounds fine.

I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.

What is worse, Apple makes absolutely no way that person can use th obviously superior headphone with the 1/8th inch jack It's impossible! and never will be.

And before you start shitting your pants about the Dongle, that unuseable piece of equipment that probably destroys your phone - if for some reason you actually do need top tier headphones, well, those need a dongle too as an adapter. All my studio phones have the larger jacks on them. Yer talkin shite, and you just hate Apple, and are now getting trapped as the rest of the manufacturers abandon the poor and outdated technology that is the 1/8th inch hedphone jack.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[zilym]

AC, you are misinformed. Look up aptX -- it's lossless Bluetooth audio, largely based on FLAC compression itself.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[iotaborg]

Fortunately there are lots of people who are just 100% okay with BT headphones. These are the same people who can't tell (or can tell/don't care) the difference between CD quality and 128 kbps MP3. People who truly enjoy the music, regardless of whether it's coming from a high end sound system, or some cheap $10 earbuds.

I used to be on the side of audiophiles - must have lossless media, expensive speakers/headphones/amplifiers, fancy cables, etc. Then I realized that it's all utterly ridiculous, and doesn't actually increase my enjoyment of the music. Being able to enjoy music with lower quality reproduction reduces the misery of not having the best audio quality, and in the end, improves enjoyment of music in general.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Type44Q]

The audio sounds fine.

It sounds okay if both devices support true lossless. I'm going to guess that my bluetooth speaker system (2015 Suburban with factory Bose) is probably more capable than whatever you're using... and it still sounds better if I use analog aux-in.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

I honestly can't decipher what you're saying here.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just even more proprietary software/hardware you have to find or buy to stick with bluetooth. Nothing compares to a dac and good wired headphones... or you could stick with Apples overly expensive crap if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.

I agree that you can hear the difference between BlueTooth and wired. I think most people could in a decent listening environment. The thing is that the Venn Diagram has a very tiny intersection point at "People who care", "People who listen to high-quality recordings on their phone", and "People who use their phone to listen to music in conditions approaching anywhere near an ideal".

When the marketing department sees the throngs of people salivating over ooooo... skinny! vs the handful of people complaining about DACs and jacks - well, they make their choice.

In the end, the pickier users can get the USB-C/lightning adapter and move on with life - so long as their battery is nice and fresh!

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[msauve]

aptX-HD is lossless, aptX isn't. Neither Apple nor Google are listed as supporting aptX-HD.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you couldn't tell on a blind test.

Its in your head dude. Nothing wrong with that, it happens to everyone.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[David_Hart]

AC, you are misinformed. Look up aptX -- it's lossless Bluetooth audio, largely based on FLAC compression itself.

AptX still does not have enough bandwidth to provide a high quality audio experience since it has to run over Blutooth so it compresses audio using a lossy codec. AptX is better than the current codecs used for Bluetooth but it doesn't give you analog quality.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

In the end, the pickier users can get the USB-C/lightning adapter and move on with life

Dongles really suck, though, so their existence changes nothing for me.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[TechyImmigrant]

Bluetooth does not (and never will) have the bandwidth for the higher resolution audio files (flac for one)..

And neither do your ears in any normal environment.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Obfuscant]

AptX is better than the current codecs used for Bluetooth but it doesn't give you analog quality.

This argument over audio quality from a cellphone is pretty funny. You folks are all novices. I'm a purist. I have a cellphone I built out of vacuum tubes because nothing beats the audio warmth you get from a vacuum tube amplifier. I power and charge my cellphone using a cable made from deoxygenated 8 gauge copper wires, because the oxygen in normal cables interferes with the highs and the high-current capacity of big wire can power the transient demands of good bass.

If you are someone who uses a cellphone as an audio source while you are sitting in your home theater, then you've admitted you don't care about the sound quality and complaining that it isn't perfection is just silly. You're going to buy the components to do the job right. If you are someone who is using the cellphone like the vast majority of people, to provide distractions from having to deal with other people while you walk or ride the bus or drive in the car, then your listening environment is so full of extraneous sounds that you will never get purity in your sound.

And that's why this whole debate over sound quality is silly. Convenience, yes, argue that, but arguing that the high frequency reproduction from your bluetooth earbud while you're riding the bus is clearly inferior to a wired studio monitor analog headphone with 1/4" TRS connector is, well, wasting a lot of everyone's time.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have more than one device, you do have to pair often and it does suck.

And even though my phone is the device that pairs with my car most often, there is not setting to make that automatic or even priority over other options.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[stinkyj]

Without going into a ton of details, bluetooth just doesn't have the bandwidth to stream high quality sound. Unless you are using these custom protocols, or I think APT-X, you're basically getting AM quality sound. Getting a $500 name brand headset won't sound much better than a $25 dollar one. GIGO. There are quite a few other issues with timing, 2.4Ghz interference, etc.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

I don't follow. In what way to they "suck"? Presumably you can just "permanently" attach it to your headphones and carry on like it had a 1/8" jack?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple doesn't support aptX, period. AAC is as good as it gets, provided the headphones support that codec...otherwise, iOS falls back to SBC.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[AmiMoJo]

Google's Pixel and Pixel 2 phones both support aptX-HD. I'm looking at my Pixel XL right now, it's one of the listed options.

aptX sounds fine for most stuff anyway. And if you are listening to lossless why would you use the phone's headphone amplifier? That would be crazy, you would need to use a USB DAC/amp combo to get quality good enough for lossless to matter.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

They increase the bulk, they decrease reliability and repairability, they get lost, and they are an additional expense.

None of those things are an enormous issue, but they do mean that dongles are a bit of a pain in the ass.

If the phone had some sort of advantage that made the loss of the jack a decent trade-off, a dongle would be something I could roll with. But these phones don't, so it still presents a loss with no compensating gain.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

Oh, and I forgot one of the major problems with the dongles: they use up the USB connector.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[AdamFistler]

Skinny small bluetooth devices are desireable during work outs. No bulk and no wires to get in the way. Usually a drop in sound quality is not an issue.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was saying that the larger 1/4" plugs are superior. From a robustness point of view, I agree.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Rakarra]

> And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons.

Does it?

Yes. It absolutely does. Here's my day to day experience with bluetooth.
Get in the car, set the phone down and turn the car audio to bluetooth mode. Fortunately, it's still 'technically' paired so I don't have to re-pair. However, the last device that my car audio was paired with tends to be my husband's phone, so now the audio system flails a bit while trying to figure out how to connect. Even though my Galaxy S reports that the BT audio has connected immediately, the car audio (comes with the 2016 Leaf, so not exactly ancient) says that the device is not connected. So I'll pull over to the side of the road and start fiddling. I'll select my phone from the car's bluetooth menu, it'll pop up a "downloading address book" popup status message. I didn't ask it to do this, there's no option to turn this off. This step naturally never succeeds. I cancel, try again. Same thing. Eventually, it'll just start skipping this step and I'll get a 'connect' button finally. This step usually works.

I'll usually have to kill the youtube process on my phone since Youtube's app is not smart enough to switch to a new bluetooth connection when it happens (when I'm in the car, I'll get a hankering to listen to a specific song I don't have on my phone. I've found Youtube is the best for that). Now, thanks to collisions in instructions between the car and the phone, the audio stream will start, auto-pause, and then start again. At that point, I'll either have gotten into a car accident or arrived at my destination.

My husband told me that the process probably wouldn't be nearly as rough if we weren't switching devices all the time, that the car wouldn't have to flail around reconnecting. But generally he'll connect his phone during the week, and I'll connect mine during the weekend. Maybe it really would be better if there was just one music device per output. I could blame my car audio system, and I certainly do, but the other car audio systems with bluetooth I'd tried were even worse. This being more recent, it actually works better.

It shouldn't be surprising that my husband's iphone works a bit better than my Samsung Galaxy -- of course the cars with the fancy audio systems will be designed for Apple's stuff. But I'm not looking forward to my next car where most likely there won't even be an analog jack, nor do I look forward to the "phones of the future" which will have no audio jack but instead some fucked up sound system that requires more fiddling than analog wires ever did, requires batteries that have to be recharged and will die out and are likely not replaceable, and sound worse than ye olde analog.

But geez, at least it doesn't have wires! Wires are horrible! So horrible that it's worth all these other sound fuckups just to get rid of wires!

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[earthloop]

but they do mean that dongles are a bit of a pain in the ass.

You're using them wrong! /me hides.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

They increase the bulk,

I'm going to dismiss that, as people who care about the sound that much have some pretty bulky headphones.

they decrease reliability and repairability,

I don't know if I can agree with this, either. 1/8" headphone connections are pretty darned unreliable. Probably 99% of my headphones have developed a problem at the plug. Sometimes I fix it (my Sennheisers) - but more often they get tossed in the garbage. I've also had to repair multiple 1/8" jacks - including one on a phone. I've had micro USB cords go bad, too - but never a jack. I don't know how USB-C will fare, but I'd bet that it's better than a 1/8" headphone connection.

they get lost

Oh, come on! :)

additional expense.

True, but insignificant compared to the headphones an audiophile is likely to have. (Not to mention the $600+ phone!)

dongles are a bit of a pain in the ass.

Yes, they are definitely an additional step that audiophiles did not previously need to take - so I can understand the derision. But at the end of the day you'll just plug it in (likely after obsessing over getting just the right one) and carry on.

phone had some sort of advantage that made the loss of the jack a decent trade-off, a dongle would be something I could roll with

They don't offer YOU an advantage, but you are in the very tiny overlapping Venn circles that I was referring to. The vast majority of the buying public will chose the thin phone over the one with the legacy jack.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

I'm going to dismiss that, as people who care about the sound that much have some pretty bulky headphones.

Consider me the exception, then. I use earbuds with my phone (admittedly high-quality ones, but earbuds nonetheless). I'm no audiophile, I just want the sounds quality to be reasonably good.

1/8" headphone connections are pretty darned unreliable. Probably 99% of my headphones have developed a problem at the plug.

Over the decades, I've had exactly one socket go bad. In every other case, what goes bad is the cable on the earphone side where it leads into the plug. That is trivial to repair with earphones, but much more difficult to repair with dongles and adapters in my experience.

Yes, they are definitely an additional step that audiophiles did not previously need to take

Again, I'm no audiophile. And the pain in the ass part isn't the "extra step".

They don't offer YOU an advantage

Yes. All of my comments are about what I want. I thought that was obvious. I couldn't care less what other people want from their phones, since I am not them.

Also, as my current phone amply demonstrates, you can have a super thin phone and an audio jack, so thinness isn't an advantage to removing it.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[PIBM]

I get to walk to work, up the mountains both ways. Not everyone gets to ride in a bus, you insensitive clod!

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[David_Hart]

AptX is better than the current codecs used for Bluetooth but it doesn't give you analog quality.

This argument over audio quality from a cellphone is pretty funny. You folks are all novices. I'm a purist. I have a cellphone I built out of vacuum tubes because nothing beats the audio warmth you get from a vacuum tube amplifier. I power and charge my cellphone using a cable made from deoxygenated 8 gauge copper wires, because the oxygen in normal cables interferes with the highs and the high-current capacity of big wire can power the transient demands of good bass.

If you are someone who uses a cellphone as an audio source while you are sitting in your home theater, then you've admitted you don't care about the sound quality and complaining that it isn't perfection is just silly. You're going to buy the components to do the job right. If you are someone who is using the cellphone like the vast majority of people, to provide distractions from having to deal with other people while you walk or ride the bus or drive in the car, then your listening environment is so full of extraneous sounds that you will never get purity in your sound.

And that's why this whole debate over sound quality is silly. Convenience, yes, argue that, but arguing that the high frequency reproduction from your bluetooth earbud while you're riding the bus is clearly inferior to a wired studio monitor analog headphone with 1/4" TRS connector is, well, wasting a lot of everyone's time.

Wow, overreact much... You took my comment that the audio quality is better out of a headphone jack and then went nuclear.

No one is arguing that you're going to get a studio quality experience with a cell phone. And no one is arguing that bluetooth isn't good enough for many people. But some of us prefer at least a good CD like experience (which cell phones do provide), whether it's walking on the street or riding a bus and bluetooth just doesn't deliver yet. And just because you don't necessarily get a great experience in noisy environments doesn't mean that you also want a crappy experience when you're at your desk, or taking a walk in the park, etc.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[darkain]

Not only this, but the USB port is on the bottom, with the traditional audio jack on the top. This does cause issues when trying to rest your phone on things.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just buy some decent headphones you cheap bastard and move on with life.

My Bose Bluetooth headphones are great, always work, run for days on a single charge and have a reasonable range with my phone.

Zero complaints.

Had Parrot Zik 2.0 previously, they were also great.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

They donâ(TM)t. But they have to make up stuff in order to complain.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

who wants a battery on their head, its extra weight. Headphones were great, the jack worked with a variety of aux in's and sounded way better than any bluetooth I have ever come across.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of my experience sucks?

You have to charge them.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

Over the decades, I've had exactly one socket go bad.

So then if the dongle is more reliable at the USB-C side, and you don't view the socket-side as problematic, I think it'll be fine. The failure will still be on the headphones side.

Also, as my current phone amply demonstrates, you can have a super thin phone and an audio jack, so thinness isn't an advantage to removing it.

Surely, though, you recognize that an extra jack and the associated space can be used to improve the phone in some other way? More battery space or lower total volume are obvious, but there are probably other tradeoffs you could make instead. Better speakers, cocaine storage, whatever. If you are marketing a phone for the masses, you need to go with what matters most to the masses. With some luck, there will always be manufacturers producing a model that fills the niche you occupy. So far, you are doing alright as only a few phones lack earphone jacks. Eventually most earphones will come with Bluetooth and/or a bulit-in USB-C port and it'll be a moot point. I'm sure people groused about the 1/8" jack when it was introduced as well.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I turn my headphones on

ROFL

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[thegarbz]

The audio sounds fine. What part of my experience sucks?

The audio. Don't worry, if you can't hear a difference then be happy and keep using what you have. I also have bluetooth and non-bluetooth headphones. The bluetooth ones also have the ability to be plugged in and there's quite a night and day difference.

Not 100% sure if it's the crap compression codec (though they are apt-x and so is the transmitter) or more likely the anaemic and harsh designed for as low power as possible and small size at the expense of audio quality Digital Analogue Converter (or following amplifier), but I have yet to find a set of bluetooth headphones that sound as good wirelessly as they do plugged in.

And that's before we discuss the fact that I have yet to find a really top quality set of wireless headphones. The Bose .... well at least the noise cancelling is good. B&W PX are slowly getting there, the B&O Beoplay H9s sound good but you're paying a big premium for wireless, I think they are about on par with my very old Sennheiser hd580s which I got for about half the price. But if price is completely ignored there's still nothing on the market that sounds even remotely like a set of reference grade headphones like Grado RS1s or Sennheiser HD800s.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

* disconnects often, needs charging at most inappropriate time
* Headsets are complete shit (esp. microphones, other party never hear me oksy. My skype USB headset seems to do 1000x better job on meetingss and conferences)
* And my Shure SE 420 is the best IEM I bought and it works only on headyphone jack (and so does Mr. Speakers Mad dog which I also own)

I will NEVER OWN another Bluetooth device in my life unless it is a mouse or a keyboard.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[stephanruby]

Most of the author's complaints seem to revolve around how most fast-pairing protocols are currently proprietary,

One fast-pairing protocol is not really proprietary.

It's just that the iPhone has decided to purposefully cripple its NFC pairing functionality until it could figure out how to extract the maximum amount of money from electronics manufacturers.

but... pairing your headphones is something you don't do very often, so it's at best a minor inconvenience.

You don't know what you're actually missing.

If you're in an UbeXr/Lyft and your phone doesn't have a headphone port for the auxiliary cord, what do you do? Are you one of those annoying people who will ask to pair your phone manually to his/her car for only a 5 minutes ride? I doubt it.

It's not just private UberXs/Lyfts/Taxis, you could also be at an event venue, a wedding reception, a family/friends' private car/boat/living room, a neighbors' picnic, a private Karaoke room, a private SPA/pool/massage room, a place with an electronic coin jukebox, a classroom/gym assuming you have staff's permission, an apartment building's shared swimming pool, a mini-gondola to get up the mountain, a football/NASCAR's skybox, a silent headphone dance party, a private champagne room, etc.

The fact is, Bluetooth pairing is still so annoying, especially with the iPhone, that you're probably not even going to want to bother.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[lukpac]

I don't follow. In what way to they "suck"? Presumably you can just "permanently" attach it to your headphones and carry on like it had a 1/8" jack?

That's great if you have a single pair of headphones, and only use them for your phone. But I connect to multiple devices (various pairs of headphones, AUX jacks, etc), and none of those connect exclusively to my phone. So that either necessitates carrying a dongle everywhere, or getting a bunch of dongles for every device, even though they would often be unnecessary (plugging headphones into a stereo/laptop/etc, plugging another phone into an AUX jack, etc). Not to mention that one would need separate dongles for USB-C and Lightning devices.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

The failure will still be on the headphones side.

Unless the failure is on the dongle itself, which is more likely.

Surely, though, you recognize that an extra jack and the associated space can be used to improve the phone in some other way?

Of course, and if the space were actually used to make other things about the phone better, that would change the equation. But -- at least so far -- it isn't.

Eventually most earphones will come with Bluetooth and/or a bulit-in USB-C port and it'll be a moot point.

It'll only be a moot point if they sound decent. I've not found any that actually do, though.

Listen, as I've said multiple times in my various comments on this topic, I won't mind the lack of the headphone jack if there were some sort of replacement to it that was at least as good. Someday, I'm sure, there will be -- and when that day comes, I'll stop complaining. But that day isn't here yet, and I've not seen any real signs that it is coming soon.

In the meantime, I just won't be buying phones without the jack, simple as that.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Obfuscant]

Wow, overreact much... You took my comment that the audio quality is better out of a headphone jack and then went nuclear.

If you consider my comment to be "going nuclear", then you need to get out more. Maybe visit the Hiroshima museums. But, of course, my response was pretty clearly not limited to just your comment, but to the entire argument going on about sound quality from cellphones. Sometimes it isn't all about you.

But some of us prefer at least a good CD like experience (which cell phones do provide),

Sorry, but CD isn't the standard of quality. Not standard CD.

whether it's walking on the street or riding a bus and bluetooth just doesn't deliver yet.

Nothing will provide "CD quality" sound when you are walking on the street or riding a bus. That's my point. That's why arguing about how to get there is a waste of time.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I must disagree. Audiophiles know the difference, but Apple fanboys couldn't hear the difference between 128kbps mp3 and ~930kbps flac because of the crap in their ears.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Dixie_Flatline]

You seem to be in this weird divide where you care just enough to buy moderately expensive stuff, but don't care enough to do it properly.

I use bluetooth headphones when I walk around town and commute and exercise. They're ultra convenient, and that's what I want at that point. (And in fact, for $25, these little headphones last 8 hours and sound just as good as any earbud-type headphones that I've used up to around $150. My Shure SE425s were better, but eventually they gave up the ghost because some rain blew into them during a particularly bad outing.)

At my desk, my phone is on a dock. The Apple lightning dock has an audio out, and that goes to a small powered mixer, which then goes to some nicer headphones. If I were really going to do this properly, I'd buy myself a little amplifier.

I don't understand how you can complain about audio quality, when even at your desk when you're driving your headphones from a DAC that costs 30c. (To be fair, Apple's DAC has been of surprisingly high quality in their phones with headphone jacks. It might be cheap, but you can actually do a lot worse.)

You're trying to play both sides against the middle. Do you care about audio quality or not? If you do, there's still plenty of ways to accommodate that, and some of them don't require the audio-out jack on a phone. If you don't, why are you whining?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

I'd get a dongle for every device. If the headphones are crappy enough that they aren't "worth" a dongle, then you'd probably be happy with Bluetooth anyway.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

The battery charging?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[David_Hart]

Wow, overreact much... You took my comment that the audio quality is better out of a headphone jack and then went nuclear.

If you consider my comment to be "going nuclear", then you need to get out more. Maybe visit the Hiroshima museums.
But, of course, my response was pretty clearly not limited to just your comment, but to the entire argument going on about sound quality from cellphones. Sometimes it isn't all about you.

But some of us prefer at least a good CD like experience (which cell phones do provide),

Sorry, but CD isn't the standard of quality. Not standard CD.

whether it's walking on the street or riding a bus and bluetooth just doesn't deliver yet.

Nothing will provide "CD quality" sound when you are walking on the street or riding a bus. That's my point. That's why arguing about how to get there is a waste of time.

So, just because there are situations where the ambient noise floor is too high we shouldn't care about the situations where it's quiet?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

Depends on the codec in use.
SBC is garbage, it really is. If that's one's only experience with bluetooth audio- I can't blame them for hating it.

aptX/AAC are pretty damn decent, with fairly tiny reductions in dynamic range, LDAC is amazing.
on the iOS side, you're however limited to SBC/AAC, and AAC isn't supported in as many headphone sets as aptX (that I can find) so my Samsung sounds amazingly better than my iPhone over BT headphones.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[swillden]

who wants a battery on their head, its extra weight.

Who wants a wire to their head? It gets caught on stuff and tangled.

Tradeoffs. Personally, I'll take the battery over the wire. But you can actually have wired if you want. It just goes to a different port.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

I agree that you can hear the difference between BlueTooth and wired.

Depends. If you have BT headphones that support AAC codec, the quality is about the same as anything purchased from iTunes store, making a wire irrelevant.
If you're falling back to SBC, due to lack of AAC support (common), it will sound like music played over a set of rope-connected tin cans.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

That's alright. I don't have any lossless media, and AAC/aptX encodes about as much dynamic range as anything I get of iTunes store. For the 15 FLAC guys out there, you should probably just get an adapter.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

A brave thing to say full of the world's single largest collection of supertasters and audiophones who can pass the Pepsi challenge between 256kbps AAC and FLAC with headphones.

/Sarcasm

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[David_Hart]

You seem to be in this weird divide where you care just enough to buy moderately expensive stuff, but don't care enough to do it properly.

I use bluetooth headphones when I walk around town and commute and exercise. They're ultra convenient, and that's what I want at that point. (And in fact, for $25, these little headphones last 8 hours and sound just as good as any earbud-type headphones that I've used up to around $150. My Shure SE425s were better, but eventually they gave up the ghost because some rain blew into them during a particularly bad outing.)

At my desk, my phone is on a dock. The Apple lightning dock has an audio out, and that goes to a small powered mixer, which then goes to some nicer headphones. If I were really going to do this properly, I'd buy myself a little amplifier.

I don't understand how you can complain about audio quality, when even at your desk when you're driving your headphones from a DAC that costs 30c. (To be fair, Apple's DAC has been of surprisingly high quality in their phones with headphone jacks. It might be cheap, but you can actually do a lot worse.)

You're trying to play both sides against the middle. Do you care about audio quality or not? If you do, there's still plenty of ways to accommodate that, and some of them don't require the audio-out jack on a phone. If you don't, why are you whining?

I agree that you get get much better quality with a dedicated quality DAC vs the built-in cell phone DAC (similar argument between the motherboard on-board sound and a dedicated sound card or external DAC). However, most external DACs are not portable in the sense that you can walk around with them while listening to music as they need to be powered. From a walking around perspective, they don't fit into the picture (which is where I was coming from). But yes, if you want a much better experience at your desk, an external DAC is the best way to accomplish this.

The point is that you can get better quality sound out of the built-in DAC + wired headphones than you can with the same DAC + Bluetooth. And while Apt-X improves the bluetooth experience a bit, it still lags behind wired connections by a noticeable margin. That's all I was commenting on.

As for how people listen to music, everyone is different. Most today prefer streaming. And for most, Bluetooth is good enough.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

Not if it's one of the majority of BT A2DP receivers that doesn't implement the AAC codec.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

The people who care about this stuff won't be happy with lossy encoding at all. They want a wire, damnit!

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

That's kind of the impression I'm getting from most of the posts on here.
I hated BT quality for a while before I figured out that Codec Matters.
I now have a cheap set of headphones that supports AAC and aptX, so I never revert to SBC on either my apple or android devices, and the quality is wonderful.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Green Mountain Bot]

I've got both very good bluetooth headphones (Sony MDR-1000X) and very good wired headphones (AKG K240). The Sony pair cost twice as much as the AKGs. They do have noise cancelling, which is a significant addition to the cost, but they are just about top-of-the-line as far as bluetooth sound quality goes. And they do sound good. BUT ... the AKGs sound much, much better, and there are much better wired headphones than those ones. I record music, so my needs are beyond the casual user, I freely admit. But sound quality is essential for me. And another thing that's essential is instantaneous response. You simply cannot record audio using bluetooth - what you hear is half a second delayed from the actual sound, which is a deal breaker for that purpose.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[BKX]

Dongles increase the amount of torque applied to the headphone jack. This will eventually cause the jack to delaminate from the phone's PCB. Very bad. This is why headphone cables have a 90degree bend on the plug. It reduces the force applied to the jack.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[TechyImmigrant]

They think they can. Self delusion is easy.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[TechyImmigrant]

>Audiophiles know the difference
Audiophiles think they know the difference

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[BKX]

USB-C and micro USB both suck as sockets in my book. I've had several microUSB ports and a USB-C port fail on me (on my Nexus 5X). Sometimes they can be repaired, but other times, such as with my N900 years ago, no such luck. I've had a number of headphone jacks fail on me as well, but only once on a phone, and the failure wasn't in the ability to transmit an audio signal, but in that jiggling the cord would convince the phone that I had a full-out headset with a button and would trigger the voice control shit, even though the headphones were just regular headphones. I'm not sure how that worked, but it sucked ass.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don’t understand! Internet must complain! Headphone jacks are holy, righteous! ARRGH!!

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Huge_UID]

Car infotainment systems suck. My experience is much better, but I am the only driver in my car.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[farble1670]

I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.

I'm sorry it's not fine for me. For me, it's very fine.

Now we're adding value to the discussion!

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[jwhyche]

Actually going to disagree with you there. Traditionally, the audio jack is on top and that is a bad spot for it. Putting it on the bottom like Samsung did in the S7 turns out to be a better position.

I too thought it belonged on the top like in my old faithful S4, gone to phone heaven before its time. Then I put a headphone jack in and it became obvious that it belongs on the bottom. Here is how.

Take your head phones put them in the bottom jack. Then look at whats playing on the screen. Put the phone in your back pocket. Welcome enlightenment.

If not enlightened, repeat steps until reached.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's Pixel and Pixel 2 phones both support aptX-HD. I'm looking at my Pixel XL right now, it's one of the listed options.

aptX sounds fine for most stuff anyway. And if you are listening to lossless why would you use the phone's headphone amplifier? That would be crazy, you would need to use a USB DAC/amp combo to get quality good enough for lossless to matter.

You're totally both underestimating the audibility of compression artifacts and the quality of modern phone headphone amplifiers.

In many cases digital lossy compression is quite noticeable even with crappy phone DACs *and* headphones.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

I agree with this. There are absolutely situations where Bluetooth is the better way to go. There are other situations where wired is the way to do.

For years now, phones have been able to support both use cases. It sucks that some manufacturers have decided that one of those use cases is no longer important.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

Please point me to wireless earbuds that sound as good as comparably priced wired ones and have good battery life. I've been unable to find any (and I've tried quite a few).

I'm not terribly price sensitive, by the way, but I am value sensitive. In other words, I don't mind a high price tag if the value I'm getting justifies it.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[JohnFen]

None of this makes Bluetooth sound any more appealing. Rather, it sounds like a minefield where you can spend a lot of time and still easily go wrong.

So let me add another benefit of wired earphones that we're losing: relatively simple buying decisions.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Obfuscant]

Are you in the habit of quoting the entire comment you are replying to? How, umm, odd.

So, just because there are situations where the ambient noise floor is too high we shouldn't care about the situations where it's quiet?

There are very few places where "it's quiet" enough to merit significant concern for reproduction purity that you cannot use good equipment capable of achieving that. Second, "it's quiet" is not the only requirement for true purity. And, once again, my comment was not solely directed at you, so the fact that you might only use a cellphone for audio in a home theater environment is irrelevant to the general discussion.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Areyoukiddingme]

So I'll pull over to the side of the road and start fiddling. I'll select my phone from the car's bluetooth menu, it'll pop up a "downloading address book" popup status message. I didn't ask it to do this, there's no option to turn this off. This step naturally never succeeds. I cancel, try again. Same thing. Eventually, it'll just start skipping this step and I'll get a 'connect' button finally. This step usually works.

I'll usually have to kill the youtube process on my phone since Youtube's app is not smart enough to switch to a new bluetooth connection when it happens (when I'm in the car, I'll get a hankering to listen to a specific song I don't have on my phone. I've found Youtube is the best for that). Now, thanks to collisions in instructions between the car and the phone, the audio stream will start, auto-pause, and then start again. At that point, I'll either have gotten into a car accident or arrived at my destination.

That sounds remarkably like the audio experience in Linux on the desktop.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Junta]

The sockets are less to blame, it's how they tend to get mounted. Demand better, demand through-mounted usb connectors and the suckers are back to parity with the typical headphone jack. The devices vendors had to be more strict with headphone jacks, because they are long and long means it becomes annoyingly a lever and needs overkill to keep it from peeling from the board. usb connectors are so shallow, they like cheaping out with surface mount because it works *most* of the time.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Junta]

Actually, you don't really get to spend a lot of time. You try it and it will either be fantastic or suck really badly and there's nothing you can do about it. Of course the vagueness of advertising 'bluetooth' means you generally are playing roulette with the quality when you buy stuff. At least android + ford system seems to work well, though I have no idea what codec it negotiated.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[farble1670]

Unless the failure is on the dongle itself, which is more likely.

Yes, let's get riled up about problems that don't exist. You know what really grinds my gears? How the screens on the new iPhone 10s might crack when the temperature gets too cold. Can you believe that? Apple is really circling the drain these days.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Junta]

FLAC for listening doesn't make a difference compared to the high end of the common bluetooth codecs. Countless double blind tests have shown that the human ear cannot tell the difference.

An argument can be made as a source for post-processing needing FLAC to preserve data, but if the very next hop is a human ear and not manipulation, it doesn't make a difference.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[DamnOregonian]

Oh, I definitely wasn't aiming to make it look appealing- just spreading the word that for interested people, the quality issues can be worked around, and as the person who replied to you said- the marketing of just 'bluetooth' is the main problem. There are technical considerations, and without taking them into account, the highest probable outcome is that you end up listening to the audio of the SBC codec, which further propagates the idea that BT is absolutely unsuitable for use at all.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[farble1670]

Dongles increase the amount of torque applied to the headphone jack. This will eventually cause the jack to delaminate from the phone's PCB. Very bad.

Yes, let's get upset about problems that might exist some day. You know what else? The screen on the iPhone 10 might crack when they get too cold. Can you believe that? Apple is really circling the drain these days.

This is why headphone cables have a 90degree bend on the plug.

Oh like this one?
https://www.amazon.com/Headpho...

And this one?
https://www.amazon.com/Wotmic-...

And this one?
https://www.amazon.com/Mxstudi...

That's just the first three representive links I found on Amazon searching for "wired headphone". I'm sure there are 90 angled jacks, but clear it's not universally implemented.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Ol Olsoc]

Severe sarcasm. People declaring that Bluetotth on their iphone sucks, an that the cheap plug in earphones give a superior listening experience.

1. Acting like audiophiles who choose a smartphone for the music experience

2. completely ignoring that with an iPhone you can have that same experience with those cheap earphones.

3. Acting like using an adapter is beyond the pale. even more tl;dr for ya - irrational arguments

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[angel'o'sphere]

HÃ?

Perhaps you are putting your phone the wrong way into your back pocket (why do you actually put it there?)

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Rakarra]

Car infotainment systems suck. My experience is much better, but I am the only driver in my car.

It sucks, because I have my music collection on my phone, and I pretty much only ever have music on in the car.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

I'd agree that bluetooth audio latency is not good for use in real-time applications or as studio monitors, but in practice it's not nearly half a second. This chart is probably reasonably accurate:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/file...

Between my QC35s (purchased because I valued better noise cancelling over better sound quality, although today I'd have chosen the MDR-1000X) and Windows 10 PC, I've found that adding a -100ms delay to the audio renderer in MPC is enough to correct for the latency. I guess that either means that Windows is using AAC, or that Auris chart is significantly overestimating latency. This isn't a problem on my phone, because my phone automatically corrects for the latency for all video playback without me having to do anything.

With aptx low latency (which I don't believe either the QC35 or MDR-1000X support), it should essentially per perceptually zero latency, particularly because most displays add almost that much video latency anyhow. I'll admit that this is probably the most annoying thing about bluetooth, and I really wish the QC35s supported aptx low latency. If the Sony headphones did, I'd probably sell the QC35 and replace them today.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

20 hour battery life with noise cancelling enabled and a quite rapid recharge means that this has never been even the slightest inconvenience.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't listen to music in taxi cabs, and if I needed to pair my phone to somebody's... boat? Then I probably wouldn't mind taking the 10-15 seconds it takes to do so the "slow" way.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

Bluetooth audio is SBC at up to 384 Kbps. It's hardly "AM quality". I've compared the exact same headphones over bluetooth and wired, and while I can sort of tell that there's a very small difference, it's not a big enough difference for me to care about.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

Sorry, 328 Kbps.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

My headphones are paired to 2-3 devices (2 that I use regularly, one that I use occasionally), and I've never had to re-pair them. Now, the headphones only support connecting to two devices simultaneously, so I do have to turn one of the devices off if I want the headphones to automatically connect to the third, but as I said, that's not something I do all that often.

Re: Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

I'm using Bose QC35s. There seems to be a very slight difference between wired and wireless, but it's not big enough for me to care about, and a difference that small certainly doesn't downgrade wireless below "sounds fine".

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

I put my phone into my pocket such that it is right-side up when my hand comes out of the pocket. That means the top of the phone is pointing down.

That's also why Apple moved the headphone jack to the bottom of the phone years before they removed it, right next to the lightning port.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

How does the dongle increase the torque? The non-flexible part of the dongle is smaller than any of the non-flexible parts of the 3.5mm plug on any of my headphones. Apple's dongles have a wire in the middle.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Rakarra]

They don't offer YOU an advantage, but you are in the very tiny overlapping Venn circles that I was referring to. The vast majority of the buying public will chose the thin phone over the one with the legacy jack.

The vast majority of the buying public won't have a choice and won't care that much because of it. They'll take what they get, as they always do. This is hardly an issue that is being spurred by consumer demand. Tim Cook's deservedly mocked statement that removing the audio jack was 'courage' was his acknowledgment that no one was asking for it; Apple was trying to drive and change what people considered normal. No one really cares that their phone is 3mm instead of 3.5mm. It has a lot more to do with what Apple and Samsung care about than it does what the end user cares about.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Darinbob]

Does eliminating the headphone jack actually appeal to the masses? Or is it that the masses approve because they are told to approve?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Darinbob]

You need to hook up your phone to the auto speakers for a 5 minute drive?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[chihowa]

Skinny jeans, probably...

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

aptX is not lossless. The codec has a lossless mode, but the bandwidth for that is far more than what is available over Bluetooth, far more than FLAC, ALAC or any other modern lossless codec. aptX is based on 1980's technology for storing radio commercials on hard drives. The only thing it has going for it compared to AAC and MP3 (which can also be used over Bluetooth to improve the quality compared with SBC) is latency and a simple algorithm that could be implemented in headphones of the late 1990s. Quality wise, it is lossy, just like MP3 and AAC, and unlike those codecs, does not take perceptual quality into account in its decisions about what parts of the audio to lose.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[NitroWolf]

So your problem is with the Leaf's implementation of Bluetooth, not Bluetooth. You should complain to Nissan.

I have the same scenario in my cars (Teslas), and do not have the problems you describe. My phone hooks up to my wifes car just fine and hers hooks up to mine just fine. The only problems we have is priority - and again, that's a Tesla implementation problem, not a Bluetooth problem.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[lukpac]

I'd get a dongle for every device. If the headphones are crappy enough that they aren't "worth" a dongle, then you'd probably be happy with Bluetooth anyway.

Even if that was feasible, and ignoring cost, that's still a bunch of dongles that aren't otherwise necessary. In my office, for example, I may plug my headphones into 2 or 3 other devices (laptop, stereo, etc) where a dongle wouldn't be used. It's just another adapter to lose that provides no actual technological improvement.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[breeze95]

> And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons.

Does it? I have bluetooth headphones. I turn my headphones on and audio starts coming out of them. The audio sounds fine. What part of my experience sucks?

Most of the author's complaints seem to revolve around how most fast-pairing protocols are currently proprietary, but... pairing your headphones is something you don't do very often, so it's at best a minor inconvenience.

Define what "audio is fine" means to you. The 3.5mm audio on my smart phone is superior to Bluetooth. The audio quality on the Bluetooth is not as crisp and sharp (especially low frequency sounds) as the 3.5 mm audio. There could be a couple of reasons for this, I admit, (1) the 3.5 mm speakers are better quality than the Bluetooth speakers and (2) I'm using Bluetooth 4.0 which is two generations behind current specs. Even with the newer Bluetooth 4.2 specs I'm still reading complaints of audio quality. It's a shame that we are still debating the merits of Bluetooth audio, which is digital, in comparison to analog 3.5 mm audio. I think one of the issues with Bluetooth is the signal is lossly and too compressed to gave high fidelity. I'm sure that will change in time with better hardware and advancements in Bluetooth technology.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried talking with those? I have tried 5 different ones all good for sound. You start to use the mic and the sound goes shitty and no one understands what you are saying

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[stephanruby]

Need is a strong word, but yes, 5 minutes or 20 minutes, especially if I'm with a couple of friends.

If I'm alone, I don't really need to, I have headphones.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[smprather]

This is the post I came here looking for. Bluetooth connectivity, predictability, controllability, etc, are all horrific. And how is it that an S7 still can't play Netflix/YouTube with audio sync'd? And everybody refuses to put an AV sync slider anywhere. Why? The hardware behind bluetooth may be competent. But the software-verse is unimaginably horrible. And after 4 revs, nobody has cared to fix it. Or even acknowledge that it's broken.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

> And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons.

Does it?

Yep.

Bluetooth in general has a re-connect problem. Sometimes it's the hardware (or hardware driver) like in my HP Laptop (where I have to use an add-on dongle because the built-in one keeps disconnecting.) Sometimes it's the end-point (earphones, mouse, keyboard, scanner, whatever..) I just generally have to re-connect to often.

Sometimes it's the software -- or firmware -- that just doesn't like pairing multiple devices, even though that's a requirement these days.

The power requirements are high.

The price is generally high. There's some weird overcharged license involved. The same hardware often charges $20 extra just to say "bluetooth." You can get the same thing on a custom 2.4 GHz protocol for less, and it's often more reliable.

Experience:
hardware: HP, Logitech, Apple, Belkin, Parrot, Philips, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Realtek, Kingston and some specialised hardware.
OS: Linux (Fedora, Ubuntu, Android...), Embedded firmware, MacOS, iOS, ...

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

kensington, not kingston, sorry

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[jwhyche]

I hate those things. They grab you in all the wrong places and then your feet turn blue for the lack of blood.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

I think they just value the smaller phone.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

I don't buy this "people are being sheeple" thing. There are dozens (hundreds?) of smart phones to choose from... it's actually overwhelming. That the two top makers are getting rid of the port in their flagship devices has to indicate at least some market acceptance at the very high end.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

What is the model? That interests me :)

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[angel'o'sphere]

And K put my phone into my keft front pocket, pullit with my left hand and switch it to my richt one as needed.
Glass pointing to my body, backside outward. Headphone jack upward, so I can easy listen ...
A hig deal of people I know, do it likewise.
The other part uses the back left pocket, and there your trick would not work ...

And a phone with the head phone jack on the wrong side would be a no buy for me ...

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Moving on with life is how we get fucked. Hitler annexed Austria? There is a very small section of Venn diagram representing the intersection of "people who care", people who know about it, people who can do anything about even if they wanted to.

The huge consistency in electric sockets, voltages, frequency of AC - at least in a particular country : is because of people who refused to move on with their life. People could have moved on with their lives if there were 100 kinds of sockets with thousand kinds of adapters. But they didn't, so we got a semblance of consistency and competition.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[ArmoredDragon]

I agree that you can hear the difference between BlueTooth and wired. I think most people could in a decent listening environment. The thing is that the Venn Diagram has a very tiny intersection point at "People who care", "People who listen to high-quality recordings on their phone", and "People who use their phone to listen to music in conditions approaching anywhere near an ideal".

You don't even need to go that far, to be honest. We live in an age where people think a 70 year old audio format with shitty dynamic range that loses some of its fidelity each time you play it is somehow the best there is. The market for good audio quality therefore isn't a very big one to begin with.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

LPs are so last year - now they are buying compact cassette tapes!

(I'm only sort-of joking.)

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

Did you just Godwin a discussion about headphones?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

In city livin', you don't keep anything in your back pocket. But if I had to choose between wallet and phone, the phone gets the back pocket. Keys, loose change, other hard and sharp things occupy the other front pocket - so short of a fanny pack (bum bag for our overseas friends) or a European carryall in the back pocket it goes. It's probably why my phones only last 2 years.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Giving the argument a name makes it wrong ?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MercTech]

Dongles are something attached to your phone by a delicate connector that want to catch on things and break your phone.

You can't use a dongle and charge your phone at the same time.

An unnecessary expense and hassle.
______________________________________

Bluetooth sucks too as it is a battery hog, inherently low fidelity, and laggy.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

1/8" jacks are also delicate and, due to being a long-ass lever, at least as likely to damage your phone. You can buy splitter dongles that let you charge and use headphones at the same time - but I've never tried one.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

No - I'm just pointing out that invoking Hitler is a little bit on the extreme side when talking about which shape an electrical connection should be.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Stopping reading my post after that part is not extreme ?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

"Extreme" sounds like the wrong word - maybe "rude"? In that case, I apologize - I was just so taken by the absurdity of the analogy that I didn't really take the rest of your post very seriously.

Anyway, the world has at least 4 common plug types, several different voltages, and at least 2 different frequencies so I'm not sure that is analogous. This is without getting into the dozens or maybe hundreds of competing lightbulb socket standards. USB-C, Lightning, and 1/8" headphones is only 3 options - so we're actually already better off in the headphone department than we are with electricity.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Analogy is an analogy, it differs in some aspects while offers insight about other aspects. The funny thing about offers is that they are often not accepted.

You clearly know very little about the variety of audio connectors so now I understand why you believe what you believe.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

Please provide an example of a phone with something other than a USB-C, Lightning, or 1/8" jack for headphones. I'm aware that some higher-end audio equipment continues to come with 1/4" jacks, but I don't see how that's relevant - especially given how you are right back to a "dongle".

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Please provide the lack of a huge consistency in frequency of AC "in a particular country". Your strawman about "Anyway, the world" is ugly.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the having yet another device to ensure is charged and the device being dead just when you want to use it because batteries still really suck.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

Japan.

Strawman? You are the one who brought up electrical power, and I'm directly addressing your comments.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Japan.

Only one ? With much much fewer AC frequencies than the number of audio connectors ? Not doing very well, are we ?

and I'm directly addressing your comments

No, my comments were about a particular country. You are addressing the strawman of Anyway, the world.

Are these the brain muddling side effects of being "taken" by a mere analogy ? Do you even have a point ?

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

Not doing very well, are we ?

Wait, didn't you admonish me for only responding to part of your post? So then I list outlet sockets, voltages, frequencies, and bulb sockets and you cherry-pick only the frequencies?

No, my comments were about a particular country [slashdot.org].

How convenient for you. It's a good thing you don't travel.

Do you even have a point ?

Yes, 3 headphone jacks is not a big deal.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

, didn't you admonish me for only responding to part of your post? So then I list outlet sockets, voltages, frequencies, and bulb sockets and you cherry-pick only the frequencies?

As if you could handle frequencies as well as sockets in the same post. You are "taken" by a mere analogy to the level of being unable to read further.

So now you admit that requiring an "adapter" for AC frequency is hugely unlikely for a resident of a country for equipment manufactured for / in the country*? We could move on, but I don't see it going any other way.

How convenient for you. It's a good thing you don't travel.

Not for me.

*Country is important because when electrical infrastructure was being standardized, the world was far less connected than it is now. So these standards largely mattered within a country, a bit less so in the continent especially continents made of small countries and largely irrelevant across continents - a huge majority of people in the world never travelled 500 km in their lives. Products were not manufactured by a company or 2 in a single place for 95% of specific markets the world over (Qualcomm for high end smart phones, Intel + AMD for processors, Android + iOS for smartphone OSes, Microsoft for corporate office software etc.)

And BTW, It's a good thing you don't know much about audio connectors.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

And BTW, It's a good thing you don't know much about audio connectors.

It's not my profession, but you sure don't want to admit that there are only 3 types of audio connections on cell phones for headphones.

I have a drawer full of audio adapters and a box full of cables: 1/4" (mono and stereo) for the musical instruments and old-school receiver, 2.5mm stereo(?) for a dictaphone, RCA for a lot of interconnections, banana plugs for speakers, TOSLINK, even a USB sound card (essentially the same as the dongles we are discussing) and a dongle to siphon off HDMI to audio. But none of that shitshow applies to this discussion.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Yeah, you are the master of the "shitshow" that doesn't apply to the discussion. Single country becomes the world, analogies become phantoms that take you.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

And you still won't admit that electrical is more of a mess than smartphone audio. Amazing.

In this country (US) we have grounded and ungrounded outlets and plugs, two common lightbulb bases (and probably a dozen less common), two different voltages with several types of outlet shapes depending on the voltage and grounding scheme. This is without even getting into phase, which is mostly commercial. I don't know what country you are in, but I think you'll find more electrical connections than smart phone audio connections wherever you are. And the world gets on just fine.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Electricity solves a trillion times more problems than smartphone audio.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

You might even say that the comparison is absurd.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a bad implementation, rather than an inherent issue with Bluetooth. I have none of those problems with my company car, which is shared, so has multiple devices paired. Nor do I have an issue with apps switching to Bluetooth output.

Not that your complaints aren't valid, but it seems to me like you should be complaining to Nissan about them, rather than pinning the issues on Bluetooth itself.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

You don't need to prove again that you don't understand analogies. I just hope you are not "taken" again.

Electricity solves a trillion times more problems with 10 times more complexity than audio connectors - which already means something for people with 2 brain cells to rub together. That something is that electricity infrastructure is 100 billion times more consistent.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[MightyYar]

Bingo logic. I have a new word.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Green Mountain Bot]

Honestly, the latency doesn't bother me unless I'm recording. If I'm recording, it's completely unworkable. I looked at the QC35, but decided on the truer audio response of the 1000x. There's no latency when you use them wired, and they're closed back (meaning no bleed-through like with an open or semi-open back like the K240), so they work well for tracking.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Guspaz]

The same is true of the QC35s (no latency when wired, and battery life doubles from 20h to 40h), but convenience is the thing: I'd rather just grab my headphones and sit on the couch than grab a 3.5mm extension cord and connect them to my DAC. Yeah, the sound quality is going to be a little better via the DAC, but I can barely hear the difference, and It's more convenient to not have any wires.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[Rakarra]

So your problem is with the Leaf's implementation of Bluetooth, not Bluetooth. You should complain to Nissan.

Like I said, every other car audio system I've tried has been worse.
But I'm not sure that it even matters. These problems exist, they happen, I'm not making them up. All I'm saying is that I don't have the problem when using analog cables -- the car audio doesn't have any trouble interpreting audio sent over a cable, the phone doesn't have any trouble sending it, and BEST OF ALL... no handshaking that takes up time.
Bluetooth is adding more complex programming over a system where that was unnecessary before. And the older I get and more time I spend in the tech industry, the more I've realized that means there's more of a chance for someone to fuck up the programming. Different vendors can't implement the protocol correctly, the protocol sucks in the first place, and it's all buggy anyway. Make a system more complex, and it just means it will fuck more and in more frustrating ways. The future sucks.

Re:Sucks how, exactly?

[bingoUV]

Given your state, you should learn many many more.

Welp

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the Bluetooth SIG should have addressed the well-known longstanding problems so that implementors didn't have to come up with better options on their own.

Re:Welp

[Anonymous Coward]

This exactly. I'm recently diving into BT stack for PC to Android comms, and it's a vaguely documented shit show.

I don't want to charge my headphones

[orphiuchus]

I already have audio technica m50x's and beyerdynamic dt770s. I'm not buying a phone that they won't work with, and I'm not switching to your fucking bluetooth beats you greedy fucks.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[DontBeAMoran]

Same here. If the smartphone isn't compatible with my headphones then it only means I'm buying another smartphone instead.

Can you imagine Macs not being compatible with non-Apple keyboard and mouse? Nobody would use a Mac, that mouse is crap.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[JohnFen]

This, too.

My main complaint with Bluetooth is audio quality. My second (but still huge) complaint is the whole charging problem.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing they come with an adapter so you can use your fancy wired headphones.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[fustakrakich]

Can you imagine Macs not being compatible with non-Apple keyboard and mouse?

Kind of.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[AmiMoJo]

The fact that Apple sells a wireless trackpad for your desktop computer tells you everything you need to know. It's all about form over function.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine Macs not being compatible with non-Apple keyboard and mouse?

You mean like every single Mac through 1997? That doesn't take much imagination.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine Macs not being compatible with non-Apple keyboard and mouse? Nobody would use a Mac, that mouse is crap.

I can remember it if that’s what you mean. Or was that sarcasm?

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Dixie_Flatline]

You're driving those cans with your puny little phone? All you guys whining about audio quality of bluetooth headphones are like people putting shitty lenses on nice cameras.

If you're at home, hopefully you're plugging the headphones into a decent amp. If you are, just buy a goddamn dock for your phone that has an audio out jack, or one of the DACs that plugs into the lightning port.

If you're not at home, you've already lost this fight. Those beyerdynamics are nice—I've got some 990s myself—but take them out into the world and you're going to have to deal with street noise, bus noise, whatever noise...you're losing any advantage you had by having those nice headphones in the first place.

A nice pair of headphones is meaningless if you're plugging them into something that can barely drive them and you're being assaulted by noise from every direction.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Green Mountain Bot]

I actually find that the charge in my Sony BT headphones lasts about a week before needing to be plugged in again, and I am a heavy user. I still think the 3.5mm jack should remain standard equipment, though.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[JohnFen]

You're probably using over-the-ear headphones. I don't use those except at home (where I'm not using my phone to play music). Even the earbuds with the longest battery life won't even last a day, let alone a week.

Re: I don't want to charge my headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have the dt770's. I started using a portable Bluetooth adapter with them when the headphone jack on my galaxy s4 broke (so yeah, I basically have an iPhone 7 now). It's not a bad experience actually. it's nice not having my phone tethered to anything, and the adapter drives them just fine.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[_merlin]

They licensed ADB to anyone who asked. A license was less than $1,000 and you could sell an unlimited number of devices. It was cheaper than licensing USB patents and paying for a vendor ID. There were input devices from Gravis, MacAlly, etc. if you didn't like what Apple had on offer.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Megol]

IOW someone else choosing to remove the option is better than allow the user to choose?

There are plenty of good headphones that are efficient and can be driven with high quality audio from the power-optimized DACs of smartphones. The DT770 is available in a 32 ohm version with a reasonable 96 db/mW rating which means they can be driven loud enough for most purposes. Even the 80 ohm version should be reasonable without external amplifier. They are also closed which should eliminate most external noise.

This is speculation based on the specs and having used headphones with similar specs, haven't tested the DT770 (don't like closed headphones).

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Green Mountain Bot]

Yeah, over-the-ear all the way. Point taken. I'm lucky enough to have a job where that's kosher. And for the music production stuff I do, you don't want to use anything else (other than when you're testing you final mix on a variety of speakers).

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[JohnFen]

I can technically wear over-the-ear headphones at work as well. My problem is that I can't stand wearing those things when there's people around -- it makes me jumpy and always looking over my shoulder thinking that someone is trying to get my attention.

Re:I don't want to charge my headphones

[Dixie_Flatline]

My point is that in general, the justifications being brought to bear here ('my headphones sound so much better than bluetooth headphones!') are specious.

Don't like charging another thing? Well, I think that ship has sailed, but okay. Don't like that you can't charge the phone and listen at the same time without a dongle? Yeah, that's legit. But complaining about the sound quality from your phone in a public space is asinine—there are so many other factors that degrade the sound that I'd wager anyone can reasonably tell the difference while they're on the bus—and complaining about the sound quality at home is similarly unreasonable, since you can plug your phone into something that you CAN plug wired headphones into.

There are reasons to not like bluetooth headphones, but sound quality is probably not one of them.

It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

The reason why Apple (and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior is not dependent on Bluetooth 5.0; it is because they support a far-superior CODEC, namely AAC, than typical shitbox BT 'phones/'buds.

Mind you, stuff like Apple's W1/W2 chips helps; but the main improvement is due to AAC.

And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Look into it.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[JohnFen]

(and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior

Beats? Superior??

Beats is downright terrible. They're one of, if not the, worst-sounding in their price range.

Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Type44Q]

The file format of the music - be it AAC, FLAC, WAV, etc - is entirely orthogonal to the discussion.

Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Type44Q]

Beats? Superior??

The software EQ with the most superior marketing.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Beat The Odds]

The reason why Apple (and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior is not dependent on Bluetooth 5.0; it is because they support a far-superior CODEC, namely AAC, than typical shitbox BT 'phones/'buds.

Mind you, stuff like Apple's W1/W2 chips helps; but the main improvement is due to AAC.

And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Look into it.

By the time the music starts its path across Bluetooth (or a headphone jack) it's already decoded.

Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[spire3661]

FLAC is too big for BT, so no its not entirely orthogonal.

Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[evilned]

Well not with apple. Apple send the raw AAC stream to the headphones for them to decompress and play. Sony's high end ones support it too. The problem becomes that if your music is coming from Spotify, Google or Pandora, they are sent to the headphones by SBC (the lowest quality bluetooth codec) . On android, some manufacturers have added Apt-X or LDAC encoding, so the stream sent to the headphones is higher quality. You're still experiencing encoding artifacts from what ever the music is encoded with plus what ever the encoding is for the stream to the headphones. I'm using LDAC on android 8.0 and I can't hear the artifacts from the codec, but other's might.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Anonymous Coward]

You have not idea what you're talking about, fuckstain.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Anonymous Coward]

Low-end Bluetooth headphones only support SBC, which is lossy and older than even MP3. Pretty much everything has to be transcoded from whatever lossy codec it's using to SBC, which results in quality loss. (And it'll sound even worse if the headphones aren't using a high bit-rate.)

Apple headphones supporting AAC makes sense, because basically all audio in the Apple ecosystem is AAC. (e.g. iTunes, Apple Music.) By using the same codec, they can stream the AAC straight to the headphones without transcoding.

But heaven help you if you use something outside the ecosystem like Spotify (which uses Ogg/Vorbis)! You'll be transcoding between lossy formats no matter what... unless you get a phone that support a lossless audio codec, like aptX.

Apple doesn't care about stuff outside their ecosystem, so they don't care to support any lossless audio codecs over Bluetooth.
This is one reason why I'm sticking to Android: I have the choice to get a phone with aptX.

I would LOVE for there to be a free lossless codec for Bluetooth. But until then, I'm sticking with aptX, no matter how much Qualcomm excels at being a monopolistic PoS.
(I think Sony donated a lossless codec to Android, but I don't know if that counts since headphone manufacturers might still need to pay them money to use it.)

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

(and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior

Beats? Superior??

Beats is downright terrible. They're one of, if not the, worst-sounding in their price range.

Ok, but I don't think that is due to their use of AAC, do you?

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

The reason why Apple (and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior is not dependent on Bluetooth 5.0; it is because they support a far-superior CODEC, namely AAC, than typical shitbox BT 'phones/'buds.

Mind you, stuff like Apple's W1/W2 chips helps; but the main improvement is due to AAC.

And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Look into it.

By the time the music starts its path across Bluetooth (or a headphone jack) it's already decoded.

Definitely true of WIRED connections (analog or digital); but for BT, AFAIK, notsomuch. Why else would they have certain audio CODECS listed?

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[ilsaloving]

They don't sound terrible to me. Sure, they don't sound as good as a pair of over-the-hear studio headphones, but then again, if I'm in a position where I *want* to really enjoy my music to the fullest extent possible, I wouldn't be using some little bluetooth headphones anyway. I would be using a set of high quality studio headphones, if not actual regular speakers. When I am out and about, *who cares* if the sound isn't top quality? I challenge anyone to be able to pick out the subtle nuances of a song when you have traffic speeding past you 15 feet away. Or in a gym with 10 other people around you clanking weights or using exercise machines.

I have a set of Beats X earbud headphones, and they sound perfectly adequate for earbud headphones. More importantly, they sound *better* than every other in-hear bluetooth headphones I've ever owned, for two reasons:
First, AAC support which is a massive quality difference from the standard SBC codec that's part of the bluetooth spec. Not that SBC was *that* bad mind you, but I may as well mention it.
Second and infinitely more importantly: I have *zero* issues with connectivity. Up until the BeatX, *every* *single* bluetooth headset I purchased gave me significant connectivity problems. I couldn't even walk down a quiet suburban street unless I kept my phone in my hand or somehow in front of me, or I would be almost guaranteed to have at least one significant connection issue. Keeping my phone in a backpack or a purse was out of the question. I don't know if it's my location, or if I ate uranium as kid, or what. But my experience with all BT headphones have been universally awful. By comparison, the Beats X has given me virtually flawless connectivity. It's even allowed me to carry phone calls when me and my phone have been on opposite ends and floors of the house. I believe a large part of that is the fact that the W1 chip is the *only* mobile chip I'm aware of that uses Bluetooth Power Class 1 (up to 100mw), which is enough to punch through everything. Everything else is Class 2 (up to 10mw).

So, yeah, the Beats may not compare to a set of wired sannheisers, but they ARE superior to everything else on the market for the reasons that matter: Just f__king working when I want them to. I now completely ignore any bluetooth hardware below $175 because to me, that appears to be the cut off point between something that works and something that people claim works but actually doesn't.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[JohnFen]

I doubt it, but I wasn't really commenting on AAC. I was just surprised at seeing Beats mentioned as being something superior.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[squiggleslash]

Unfortunately that's not true - well, it's sort of true but not in a meaningful way. Audio has to be transmitted over BT compressed because there's not enough bandwidth for a solid, reliable, uncompressed 44kHz 16 bit stereo signal at the power levels BT devices are expected to support. (Technically Bluetooth can transmit/receive up to 50Mbps, but power and interference issues means nothing actually makes use of those kinds of speeds for sustained use.)

So a typical music player will decompress the music, and then the Bluetooth stack in the phone will recompress it using one of a variety of formats BT headsets recognize. SBC is supported by all BT music headsets but is generally considered awful. AptX is a proprietary format owned by Qualcomm that's fairly common. MPEG Audio Layer 2 and MP3 are also officially supported but are optional. Apple's devices support AAC.

Apparently some people believe the iPhone doesn't decompress AAC music, but just sends the raw bitstream over Bluetooth, skipping the decompress/recompress step. That's possible, but I suspect it's complete bollocks.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[AmiMoJo]

According to Apple's documentation they seem to be using AAC at 256kb/sec. That's considerably lower than aptX at around 360kb/sec.

Of course you can argue over which sounds better but since most headphones don't support AAC it's really more of a choice of do you want shitty Beats/Earpods, or do you want some good headphones in which case the lack of aptX support in iOS is a bit of a problem.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

I doubt it, but I wasn't really commenting on AAC. I was just surprised at seeing Beats mentioned as being something superior.

Actually, I agree. I was just trying to think (quickly) of BT earbuds/headphones that I KNEW supported AAC.

Someone else commented that some Sony earbuds do, too, and there may be others (see below). For example, these are half the price of Apple BT buds, and support AAC:

https://www.amazon.com/NuForce...

Another pair of $80 BT earbuds supporting AAC:

https://www.amazon.com/MEE-aud...

And these AAC compat. earbuds are downright cheap at $30:

https://www.amazon.com/JPRiDE-...

$50. Claim 10 hour battery life. AAC Support:

https://www.amazon.com/NuForce...

And if you want DOWNRIGHT CHEAP AAC Earbuds, howabout these for $18.88??? :

https://www.amazon.com/BlueAnt...

That was 5 minutes on the Amazon site. So, not so hard to find AAC-compatible BT buds/phones at almost ANY quality, and price, level.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

According to Apple's documentation they seem to be using AAC at 256kb/sec. That's considerably lower than aptX at around 360kb/sec.

Of course you can argue over which sounds better but since most headphones don't support AAC it's really more of a choice of do you want shitty Beats/Earpods, or do you want some good headphones in which case the lack of aptX support in iOS is a bit of a problem.

ORLY? Amazon would beg to differ:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=n...

and for the headphones:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s...

That took all of about 10 seconds, including typing in the amazon url and the search-term.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[thegarbz]

And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?

By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).

If I wanted to sit around the fireplace and sing Kum ba yah while ranting against corporate ownership, I too would support AAC. In the meantime I'll happily say that apt-x and AAC sound no different, offer no real benefits over one another to the end user who really doesn't give a shit as long as it works, and yet we still get average quality sound many thanks to sub-standard use as little power as possible because we gotta blow it all on bluetooth DACs mounted in cheaparse headsets.

Apple supports AAC? Fantastic. Wake me when they stop supporting gluing bits of metal into their plastic headphones simply to make them feel heavier and higher quality than they are.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[DamnOregonian]

He's completely correct. Most do not support AAC. That does not mean AAC supporting ones are difficult to find. I'm sure you can understand that nuance.
To demonstrate this phenomenon using your highly scientific method, replace AAC in your amazon search with aptX, or leave it out altogether.
The compare count of product listings. :)

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you are saying they recode the existing music to AAC?
Really? so if I am playing, say, FLAC, then the phone will reencode it to AAC?
Latency much? AAC is NOT even CLOSE to a low latency protocol - aptX is (although it also doesnt sound great).

By the way, can you point to one SINGLE set of headphones that would be considerd mid-high end that support this wonderful AAC solution?
I am thinking something of the level of Sennheiser 280 Pro or better?

I thought not..

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Junta]

So the vast majority of consumption is going to be video and music, latency doesn't matter one bit. For phone conversations (sadly always done over *terrible* HFP), latency is dwarfed by the long-haul communication.

I still say the easy answer is usb-c and similar headphones, and not sure what the justification is for saying 'that's not the answer'.

Even as latency happens, our hearing/visual system is *so* used to wildly varying video/audio input that we aren't remotely sensitive to audio latency.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Anonymous Coward]

AAC is an industry standard codec, but it's use in Bluetooth is proprietary (as in not part of the standard, anyone can do it though, as Bluetooth allows for proprietary codecs).

The only codecs that are part of the Bluetooth standard are SBC, MP3 and AC-3. Only SBC is mandatory for standards compiance, and is the terrible sounding codec that causes the complaints about Bluetooth audio quality.

Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think they do send the raw stream, they need to transcode to the specific bandwidth and feature set supported by the Bluetooth connection and headphones at the other end. Typically the AAC to the headphones will be at 96 or at best 128kbps (on a poor connect toon it can go even lower), and if the headphones support eAAC+, it will be using that, as performance at those sorts of bitrates is much better.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?

By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).

If I wanted to sit around the fireplace and sing Kum ba yah while ranting against corporate ownership, I too would support AAC. In the meantime I'll happily say that apt-x and AAC sound no different, offer no real benefits over one another to the end user who really doesn't give a shit as long as it works, and yet we still get average quality sound many thanks to sub-standard use as little power as possible because we gotta blow it all on bluetooth DACs mounted in cheaparse headsets.

Apple supports AAC? Fantastic. Wake me when they stop supporting gluing bits of metal into their plastic headphones simply to make them feel heavier and higher quality than they are.

I actually agree that 320 bps AptX and 256 bps AAC likely sound indistinguishable, and great. However, it is also true that most Slashdotters hate single-owner "proprietary", and that AptX fails that test, while AAC does not (being an IEC standard and all...)

However, I disagree wholeheartedly that when you are paying $80 and up for BT earbuds/headphones that there isn't room in the product design budget for a decent DAC and amplifier. Sure, just like if you pay $20 for analog phones/buds you shouldn't expect the same performance as if you pay $99, the same can be said of BT phones/buds. If you pay $20 to $30, expect mediocre sound. But if I spend $125 for some Sony BT phones, or $160 for Apple EarPods, I expect a fairly satisfying experience. And I am pretty sure I would get exactly that, based on my experience with the analog versions of the Sony phones that they have BT-ized, and the many reviews of the EarPods.

As for Apple putting weight into their earbuds (I note that you didn't specify EarPods), there is another possible explanation: Retention in the ear, and/or balance. I find it much less than plausible that the company with a reputation for slimmer/lighter at every turn, suddenly wants to take an item like an earbud, that people EXPECT to be pretty light, and stick lead weights in it just to make it feel "hefty". Rather, I will bet that the mass is there to balance the weight of the battery, so the earbud doesn't tend to rotate/flip-out-of-the-ear if the user does something like a backflip on their skateboard, or, more likely, bends down to tie their shoes, pick up something off the floor, or just look down at their keyboard. Such behavior would be incredibly annoying, and would have resulted in an Internet chock-full of "They were great, and seemed to fit perfectly, until I bent over to pick up the cat, then they spun right out of my ears!" Types of reports...

TL;dr Give it a rest, Hater.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

He's completely correct. Most do not support AAC. That does not mean AAC supporting ones are difficult to find. I'm sure you can understand that nuance.

To demonstrate this phenomenon using your highly scientific method, replace AAC in your amazon search with aptX, or leave it out altogether.

The compare count of product listings. :)

Apparently, you didn't understand the nuance of his sarcastic connotation, that being that AAC choices were restricted to Apple and Beats.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[thegarbz]

However, it is also true that most Slashdotters hate single-owner "proprietary", and that AptX fails that test

Only when it affects them. They hate being limited in software options, they hate being drawn into licensing agreements, they hate the proprietary lock-in being used for pesky shit like DRM etc. For the most part people (including most slashdot users) don't give two shits about something buried deep in a communications protocol unless it a) has a negative affect on quality or b) doesn't work.

As for Apple putting weight into their earbuds (I note that you didn't specify EarPods), there is another possible explanation: Retention in the ear, and/or balance.

They didn't do it on Earpods, that would be stupid. They would fall out of your ears. But then we were also talking about high quality audio here. Apple doesn't pitch their Earpods as their top quality audio product.

TL;dr Give it a rest, Hater.

To be fair I'm an equal opportunity hater and a bit of an arse online. I don't care if it's Windows chewing up your dataplan, Samsung phones bursting into flames for shithouse quality control, or Apple blowing marking gas out their arse attempting to do something different while also justifying the highest markup in the audio industry, hating is a hobby of mine, and slashdot ... well the amount of cannon fodder I get here makes I like my crack dealer.

Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC

[TheFakeTimCook]

However, it is also true that most Slashdotters hate single-owner "proprietary", and that AptX fails that test

Only when it affects them. They hate being limited in software options, they hate being drawn into licensing agreements, they hate the proprietary lock-in being used for pesky shit like DRM etc. For the most part people (including most slashdot users) don't give two shits about something buried deep in a communications protocol unless it a) has a negative affect on quality or b) doesn't work.

As for Apple putting weight into their earbuds (I note that you didn't specify EarPods), there is another possible explanation: Retention in the ear, and/or balance.

They didn't do it on Earpods, that would be stupid. They would fall out of your ears. But then we were also talking about high quality audio here. Apple doesn't pitch their Earpods as their top quality audio product.

TL;dr Give it a rest, Hater.

To be fair I'm an equal opportunity hater and a bit of an arse online. I don't care if it's Windows chewing up your dataplan, Samsung phones bursting into flames for shithouse quality control, or Apple blowing marking gas out their arse attempting to do something different while also justifying the highest markup in the audio industry, hating is a hobby of mine, and slashdot ... well the amount of cannon fodder I get here makes I like my crack dealer.

If you think Apple has the highest markup in the audio industry, you simply haven't purchased any real audiophile gear.

$20,000 speaker systems with no more than $150 worth of components in them, $3500 35W amplifiers that look like a science fair experiment inside, $2000 preamps with $0.85 op amps and 11 cent 5% resistors and +/- 20% aluminum electrolytic capacitors in the audio path, $1500 disc players with about $50 worth of components, including the "audiophile-quality Burr-Brown DACs" (that you can buy from DigiKey for $2.85 in single-unit quantities)... The list goes on and on.

Does Apple make good coin on their products? Yes, and they aren't trying to hide that fact. But:

1. Their products are almost universally well designed, and use high-quality components.

2. There are a LOT of "audio industry" OEMs that have MUCH higher margins on their products than does Apple.

Nope

[JohnFen]

a move that would likely push rest of the smartphone makers to adopt a similar change

Not the ones that I'll be buying from, until there is an alternative to the wire that is at least as good.

If that means I'm buying a older model, so be it. It probably won't, though. My

prediction is that there will be high-end smartphones with headphone jacks for a few years yet. There will probably be at least one remaining manufacturer that will be happy to take the money from people Apple and Google have decided are no longer important to them.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd better stock up on good hardware now, while it's still available. Manufacturers are surprisingly fickle and ignorant of what users actually want rather than what "users" "want" according to pundits and loudmouths.

Signed,
A happy and enduring Windows Mobile user with a spare Lumia 950XL on-hand

Re:Nope

[JohnFen]

No need to stock up. Older used smartphones will be on the market for a very, very long time. There's a store 500 yards away from me right now that does nothing but sell such phones.

Improved Technology

[thegreatbob]

Mhmm. Right. One should think of the headphone jack as a simple electrical interface, rather than some sort of magical sound-transport medium. Past a certain point in the hardware, it's all analog anyhow. We seem to be arriving in a brave new world where we eventually won't even be able to connect light bulbs directly to the power grid. Something something luddite. Something something courage. That is all.

Re:Improved Technology

[Ol Olsoc]

Mhmm. Right. One should think of the headphone jack as a simple electrical interface, rather than some sort of magical sound-transport medium.

Well there you are wrong. My audiophile friends and me have done the experiments, and the best sound possible is found when using the small headphone jacks. It lends a vibrancy and a sort of anti-listening fatigue to teh sound. The 1/8th inch phone jack also extends th ehigh and low end of any headphone, an dthe crispness efface due to the smaller spring metal used, can make a 5 dollar headphone bought at Big Lots sound much superior to a stutio headphone, sa a Beyerdynamic. Where after listening to test tones for a hundred straight hours had people tearing the phones off their heads and run screaming out of the room, while the 5 dollar Big Lot's phones and the exquisite 1/8th inch jack and plugs we had to turn off the test tones after two weeks because we were concerned about the wearers starving to death, and they sure didn't smell good by that time.

Audiophile approved as a critical component of anyone who isn't tone deaf.

Re:Improved Technology

[thegreatbob]

I stand corrected!

Re:Improved Technology

[Obfuscant]

The 1/8th inch phone jack also extends th ehigh and low end of any headphone, an dthe crispness efface due to the smaller spring metal used,

This sounds like the kind of stuff you read in the ads in high-end audiophile magazines, where people will sell you 000 gauge power cords for your power amps because the big wire has a lower impedance and allows the amp to reproduce low frequencies better. Or the company that was selling a gold plated digital-certified HDMI cables for, IIRC, $400, because it guaranteed error-free digital sound and video. Or deoxygenated copper cables, or any number of other snake oils.

Re:Improved Technology

[DamnOregonian]

This sounds like the kind of stuff you read in the ads in high-end audiophile magazines,

Or a quarter of the /. posts about this article.

Re:Improved Technology

[sysrammer]

Well played. You had me going. The typoes seemed to make it "more authentic" even. I sped read through "the crispness efface due to the smaller spring metal used", then returned to it because a small red flag tinged into my awareness. Well, that and your "5 dollar Big Lot's phones", of course.

Re:Improved Technology

[Ol Olsoc]

I stand corrected!

Its okay - the audiophile world has been turned upside down by the confirmation of the Higgs Boson, and we're all catching up. 8^)

Re:Improved Technology

[Ol Olsoc]

The 1/8th inch phone jack also extends th ehigh and low end of any headphone, an dthe crispness efface due to the smaller spring metal used,

This sounds like the kind of stuff you read in the ads in high-end audiophile magazines, where people will sell you 000 gauge power cords for your power amps because the big wire has a lower impedance and allows the amp to reproduce low frequencies better. Or the company that was selling a gold plated digital-certified HDMI cables for, IIRC, $400, because it guaranteed error-free digital sound and video. Or deoxygenated copper cables, or any number of other snake oils.

Don't forget the gold plated fuses and special knobs. Indispensable for a distortion free listening experience!

Why those folk can't be bothered to learn the basic physics of audio reproduction is beyond me. That is fascinating all by itself., and little need for the mumbo jumbo like I wrote - and that sounds just like the bs they believe.

Re:Improved Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that was sarcasm. Started somewhat normal, but last sentence is telling. At least IMHO.

Re:Improved Technology

[Ol Olsoc]

Well played. You had me going.

All in good fun of course. But on a serious note, I'm not terribly concerned about getting the utmost in fidelity from my iphone. Most of the places I might listen are going to have too much background noise. So Bluetooth or plugging in the iPhone headsets are okay by me.

Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Sniper98G]

The real problem with removing the 3.5mm jack is with headphone durability. If you use earbuds a lot chance are you wear them out at intervals. When you have a 3.5mm jack and you drop a bud in a glass of water, you say that sucks and go buy another cheap pair of buds.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Anonymous Coward]

And then, you plug those new buds into that same $9 dongle that came free in the box and go on with your day.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[sh00z]

However, if you have an $800 phone that you drop in a glass of water, and it is ruined because of water leaking in through a 3.5mm jack, that really sucks. I'll accept bluetooth or a walled garden as the price of water-resistance.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Ol Olsoc]

The real problem with removing the 3.5mm jack is with headphone durability. If you use earbuds a lot chance are you wear them out at intervals. When you have a 3.5mm jack and you drop a bud in a glass of water, you say that sucks and go buy another cheap pair of buds.

I've listened to regular 3.5 mm plug phones on my iPhone 7. It isn't magic.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Gavagai80]

I've had the opposite durability problem: the headphone jacks on my last two phones have been flaky and progressively harder to keep working with any earbuds. Bluetooth is my solution for that.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Quirkz]

With the dongle, sure. But either I need to buy three dongles (car, office, and home) and then hope I don't lose the little things, or I have to try to carry it with me everywhere, which almost assures that I it'll get washed or lost or left behind pretty quickly. And there's at least a couple of hours at work where I can't listen and charge my phone at the same time. That's not ideal, and certainly a step down from what I've got now.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[thegreatbob]

Bluetooth makes a good backup indeed for 3.5mm users, and the converse is true too... not affording people multiple avenues of achieving their ends is unkind. Comparable to removing decades-old, well-understood keyboard shortcuts from an application because most people now have a mouse.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Hal_Porter]

The Galaxy S5 had a headphone jack that was waterproof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Here's the part on its own

https://www.ifixit.com/Store/P...

You can see here - the jack is encapsulated in plastic which is cunningly designed so the wires pass through but water does not.

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Anonymous Coward]

No way. It’s the Internet, so instead we'll bitch about it for years and years, like cranky old men (which we're 100% not, cause we’re right).

Re:Never going to replace $5 earbuds

[Dixie_Flatline]

I went through a set of Shures (cable casing cracked), then had the replacements die because some rain blew into them when I was caught out in a rainstorm. There's $400 down the drain.

I went through 3 sets of Sennheiser sports headphones. 2 failed at the jack, one failed because the wires cracked. That was over 2 years. (Sennheiser replaced one set under warranty.)

I've had etymotics and Skull Candys (TERRIBLE, DO NOT BUY) and generic Apple earbuds and they all have cable or jack failures at some point.

The $25 bluetooth earbuds I have sound just as good as those Sennheisers, but I can buy FIVE pairs for the price of one of the Sennheiser sets. The Skull Candys are terrible at any price. I'd almost rather not listen to music.

I also don't snag the cables on anything anymore. I'll never use wired headphones with my phone again.

Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO, in these times, we need Jesus more than we need headphone jacks.

in america you can only buy 2 kinds of phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

weird, rest of the world will still have the headphone jack for maaany years

What lock-in

[Applehu Akbar]

When I acquired a Jabra Bluetooth headset years ago, long before the 3.5 mm receptacle was eliminated, I gladly used it as a replacement for the old earbuds. No more tangly cord and I’ve never looked back.

The range of music I can play over the Jabra is exactly what I could play over the old earbuds. What am I being locked into, exactly?

Re:What lock-in

[fluffernutter]

What am I being locked into, exactly?

Plugging the headset in every night. You have become a slave to your devices. Plugging in a phone or a tablet I can understand because the alternative is to use them plugged into a wall which makes them less portable obviously. But you have lost the freedom to be able to use them 24 hours a day if you want, you have to take time out for charging. And you have lost the freedom to be able to throw them into a drawer for a month and take them out afterwards and use them right away.

Re:What lock-in

[Obfuscant]

Plugging the headset in every night. You have become a slave to your devices. Plugging in a phone or a tablet I can understand

I have absolutely refused to become a slave to my devices. I never plug anything in. When the device stops working, I go to the store and buy a new one.

Now, in reality, this is a bit of a problem because of the tube cellphone that I use to get the warmth of vacuum tubes in my audio. It will only run for five minutes on one charge. Instead of going to the store every five minutes for a new tube phone, I keep it plugged in to the USB charger. I don't need multiple charging cables because the one I had to build using 8 gauge wire (for better bass response) is hard to lose.

But you have lost the freedom to be able to use them 24 hours a day if you want,

If you have to stay up for 24 continuous hours, you have worse problems in your life than poor audio from a bluetooth headset.

Re:What lock-in

[fluffernutter]

don't stay up 24 continuous hours, but I listen while I go to sleep. So when am I supposed to charge? During the day when I want to use the headphones some more?

airplane mode

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be missing something but how is one to use headphones on a plane. Can one enable BT but not enable cell? If so it is not straightforward.

Re:airplane mode

[JohnFen]

Can one enable BT but not enable cell? If so it is not straightforward.

Yes, you can, and it's straightforward on every phone that I've ever used. There are separate controls to enable/disable each of the radios (cell/WiFi/BT), so you can mix and match.

Re:airplane mode

[Anonymous Coward]

https://blog.bluetooth.com/faa-clears-bluetooth-technology-for-takeoff

Same rules apply to in flight wifi, you can turn on these radios but not the cellular one.

Re:airplane mode

[fattmatt]

iPhone airplane mode only disables wifi and telephony. So buy an iPhone and some BT headphones.

Re:airplane mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Individual buttons for wifi & BT. No obvious button for cell beyond airplane mode I can find (android)

Re:airplane mode

[JohnFen]

Put the phone in airplane mode, then reenable bluetooth, and you're good to go.

Re:airplane mode

[fluffernutter]

Except for the fact that you're not supposed to use any transmitting or receiving function and bluetooth would qualify.

Just like Common Core...

[pdfsmail]

It adds extra bullshit to something that should be as simple.(like plug it in)
instead pair your device, make sure its charged and make sure to turn off Bluetooth when you are not using it! Then when done add those extra batteries to the electronic graveyard! I have had plenty of jacks work for years, I have also had Bluetooth transmitters that sucked so bad they were choppy from 3 feet away or burned out . I can replace a jack in most devices. Not an integrated Bluetooth chip.
Great Job!

Re:Just like Common Core...

[iotaborg]

Have you tried Apple's AirPod implementation? Put it in your ears and they're ready to go. Take them out and they shut off. BT transmission quality is excellent (W1 chip). After you're done, put them back in their case - 15 minutes of charging gives you another 3 hours of playback.

In time, there will be many more solutions like this, and costs will go down. BT headphones have already significantly improved in the last year, and there's no reason not to think they'll get even better and cheaper.

Re:Just like Common Core...

[Anonymous Coward]

What specifically do you not like about the Common Core? Or are you just another fucking idiot who talks shit about things he knows almost nothing about? As a teacher, I'm familiar with people who hate it, but can't explain why and really don't have any reasons. It's just a list of basic things that a teacher should cover over the year: write an essay. Read a book and understand character development. It's just a general list of useful topics that teachers can address in any way they should, but suggests a minimum level of teaching that any decent teacher anywhere in the US should address.

Re:Just like Common Core...

[Anonymous Coward]

In time, there will be many more solutions like this, and costs will go down.

This line was snooted straight from your butt-hole, you have no idea what you are talking about.

You mean like how the price of MacBook chargers has gone down over the years??? HAH!!!

The bluetooth spec is deliberately crippled so that proprietary solutions are needed for the seamless experience. Any vendor who wants to sell "quality" will be forced to pay the Apple patent license and pass the costs along to you.

False Assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

The 3.5mm port can coexist with Bluetooth and USB-C or Lightning ports. Apple/Google apologists need to stop arguing as if newer technologies require removing the 3.5mm port.

Re:False Assumptions

[gweihir]

Apple/Google apologists are not very smart. This idea of "coexistence" is probably too complex for them. Same as the idea that Apple or Google could actually be wrong on something.

While reading this, the imagery it evoked

[Anonymous Coward]

was a depressed Goth teenager saying "don't bother... it's probably just going to suck anyways".

FLAC or PCM or bust.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want lossy codecs. I want the same quality of digital signal as I would get analog signal.

Bluetooth has the bandwidth to do it too, so why none of the approved audio modes include a RAW, PCM, FLAC or other non-proprietary lossless audio stream option is beyond me.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yeah I want to move away from the 3.5mm audio jack!

Yeah, those damn audio-jack lovers, get them! I was completely unable to use bluetooth audio until apple had "the courage" to uninvent the audio-jack and i was finally free to not use it!

Invisible hand...if only

[hyades1]

If there really is such a thing as a free market, at least one of the major manufacturers should keep making a phone with the headphone jack. There have to be millions of people who are entirely uninterested in finding themselves locked into what will probably evolve into a one-station radio, with its own stable of "approved" entertainers, and no doubt a "how often can we shear the sheep" approach to monthly fees.

Re:Invisible hand...if only

[Anonymous Coward]

If there really is such a thing as a free market, at least one of the major manufacturers should keep making a phone with the headphone jack. There have to be millions of people who are entirely uninterested in finding themselves locked into what will probably evolve into a one-station radio, with its own stable of "approved" entertainers, and no doubt a "how often can we shear the sheep" approach to monthly fees.

If keeping it in is like leaving money on the table (e.g. through new headphone, accessory and other sales) and consumers don't make the headphone jack the primary reason for choosing a phone, then the headphone jack is going away...the same way the sd card and the replaceable battery are going away. The manufacturer leaves money on the table by leaving those features in too - sd cards discourage users from getting the overpriced memory upgrade and the non-replaceable battery encourages users to replace their phones sooner.

Re:Invisible hand...if only

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hopeful for the invisible hand. But if it were real, I'd have a flip-out keyboard and a replaceable battery.

I guess RIP Ipod shuffle

[Anonymous Coward]

it's sole reason for being will soon be gone

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[T.E.D.]

While this is an interesting argument, I'd like to point out, as someone who has been using BT headphones for the last 3 years, that I have to replace headphones way more often than cellular devices. I think I'm on my 3rd set with this phone, and the right bud on this one has a short, so the third is not long for this world either.

So moving the "high end DAC" to the headset may have some advantages, but not having to rebuy it as often is NOT one of them.

iTunes and Google Play etc;

[deviated_prevert]

Jackasses. Take your cloud music services bullshit and shove it up your analogue holes. Bluetooth devices are garbage audio like most of the crap being sold as digital files. The assholes are still 'normalizing' and ruining the great classical recordings to make them more audible in car stereo settings. As far as I am concerned the whole recording industry has turned into a bunch of morons who couldn't tell the difference between flugelhorn and a fucking fog horn.

Yes I am pissed at these assholes, Sony, Apple, Google and the whole shebang deserve to be roasted for what they do to classical recordings. Sell me pure 24 bit by at least 96 audio files of great well mixed recordings and I will pay but as long as you jackasses 'normalize' and compress the shit out of classical recording I want nothing to do with you and you will not get one more cent out of my pocket period.

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol and few manufacturers gives a shit about you, because there's no market. Go have fun with your vinyl, horse drawn buggies, and what not; the rest of us will move on.

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Anonymous Coward]

24/96 recording is utterly pointless. Many studies out there show real people can't tell the difference between CD quality and 256 or 320 MP3 (and for many, even 128 is tough). Audiophile community goes batshit insane when someone points to a blind a/b tests disproving what they believe, because it shows that their $1000 cables and whatever $$ investment was a total waste of money. Crazy dissonance.

Quality of recording, music, musician's skill, instruments, etc. certainly does matter, I don't argue against that. Things like 24/96 or BT compression that people like you get so worked over, matters so little in the end (although older Android devices, from what I understand, had terrible BT audio - that I can understand).

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Anonymous Coward]

I should add that 24/96 makes sense at the production level when sound is being edited, don't want aliasing/artifacts, etc. At the consumer level? Not a bit. Stop wasting your time and money on this, you'll be happier in the end.

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Anonymous Coward]

bunch of morons who couldn't tell the difference between flugelhorn and a fucking fog horn.

The fog horn sounds good?

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Anonymous Coward]

Triggered snowflake alert. Someone get this man a monster cable post haste!

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[CapS]

It it matters to the engineer's ears, it matters to the audiophile's ears as well. Some folks want to hear the exact same sound that was created in the studio. The technology exists, it's not that expensive, and these days the file sizes are more than manageable. There is a difference that can be heard. The high sampling frequency means that the anti-aliasing filter doesn't have to be as steep and affect the higher frequencies that can be heard. There are other differences as well, but you have to know what to listen for.

That being said (trying to tie this to the article), if you're an audiophile and really care about the sound, you won't be listening to music on your phone on the go. And if you really need to use high-end headphones with your phone and you don't have a headphone jack, you'll likely use a dongle, or (even more likely) a high-end external D/A converter.

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[iotaborg]

The whole point of this article is BT audio on a portable. For this purpose, it is totally unnecessary to have 24/96 or even lossless audio. Show me real data with controlled experiments that proves people can differentiate 24/96 from 16/44, let alone tell which one is better, and I'll believe you. There's plenty of studies that show otherwise. I suppose if it makes you feel good on a psychological level, then that's something... it's pretty easy to trick the human senses.

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Anonymous Coward]

Sell me pure 24 bit by at least 96 audio files..

I was 100% with you up until this point. 24-bit audio is great for mastering, but practically useless on the consumer end. The noise floor of 16-bit audio is already so low you can hear a mouse fart. As for the 96khz sampling rate, I'm sure you're one of those stupid ass motherfuckers that believe D/A converters produce "stair-step" waveforms. You're wrong and they don't. At 44.1, every frequency at and below 22,050hz is reproduced perfectly, smoothly, without any temporal distortion whatsoever. You don't understand how digital sampling works. Educate yourself.

Re: iTunes and Google Play etc;

[Evtim]

Millions of flies can't be all wrong! Eat shit!

Re:iTunes and Google Play etc;

[CapS]

Here you go:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/brows...

"...Results showed a small but statistically significant ability of test subjects to discriminate high resolution content, and this effect increased dramatically when test subjects received extensive training..."

Regarding Bluetooth on a portable, I agree 24bit/96k is useless. But for folks using a portable with high quality plug-in headphones (particularly with an external DAC) it may be desirable.

Just one more thing on my "do not buy" list

[gweihir]

The other is currently a non-removable battery. Sure, the "high end" crap is a no-go that way, but I will get a phone designed by actual engineers, not by marketing morons and wannabe "designers". It will also be much cheaper and do what I need.

Re:bullshit

[fluffernutter]

Yes. 10 year old used vehicles for $1500 can work 'pretty well' too. But people still buy new ones, imagine that.

Foundations of Freemarkets.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Almost everyone blindly says, "free market will provide the maximum benefit at minimum cost", without trying to look at the basic assumptions made.

For the invisible hand of the free market to work, you need competition. You also need informed customers making rational decisions. If customers are not informed, or if they are apathetic or if they make irrational decisions, it would produce weird results.

Market bubbles from tulip bubbles to emu farming to credit default swap derivatives ... to million people a day buying phones sans headphone jacks.

Re:Foundations of Freemarkets.

[kamapuaa]

Huh? Bluetooth instead of headphone jacks is a market bubble? Do you logic?

Re:Foundations of Freemarkets.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Headphone jacks will provide maximum benefit at minimum cost. But the market is going away from it. Market bubbles are a well known failure mode. This is another failure mode. Bubbles burst. At some point a cheaper alternative to walled garden will emerge, it might even be a better blue tooth

Re:Foundations of Freemarkets.

[Anonymous Coward]

A market bubble is when speculation drives prices to unreasonable values, leading to speculators losing massive amounts of money when the product inevitably returns to a realistic valuation.

While headphone jacks are...a relatively minor thing that a majority of people don't particularly care about, and are easily available on competing products if you are one of those people who cares.

Bubble markets are bad, and yeah removing the headphone jack is bad, but that doesn't mean they're equivalent. There's actually basically no relation.

The premise is wrong

[dnaumov]

âBluetooth continues to suckâ.

No it fucking doesnâ(TM)t, so stop with the BS. Yes, its true that cheapass bluetooth headpones are bad. Buy the good ones, of which there are many, instead. As more and more people move to wireless, their price will continue to go down. It was pretty hilarious to read about how the Airpods were supposedly âexpensiveâ. Apple literally came in and ate everybodyâ(TM)s lunch. Wireless headphones that used to cost $400 are now $200-250 all of a sudden because Apple forced other manufacturers to respond. Yes, I get that you want your âgood enoughâ headphones for $20 and these are not far away any longer.

Re:The premise is wrong

[sconeu]

For me, it's not that Airpods are expensive. It's that they are UNCOMFORTABLE. Apple earbuds in general hurt my ears. I much prefer the type of earbuds that use gels (such as Skullcandy).

Re:The premise is wrong

[dnaumov]

For me, it's not that Airpods are expensive. It's that they are UNCOMFORTABLE. Apple earbuds in general hurt my ears. I much prefer the type of earbuds that use gels (such as Skullcandy).

I actually agree with you. I personally tried out Airpods and ended up getting Beats X instead. Those fit me right ouf the box and come with a set of FOUR replacement eartips of different size.

Re:The premise is wrong

[iotaborg]

They're pretty much there; look on Amazon and you'll find plenty of true wireless headphones with case chargers (like AirPods) for $50, probably comparable to $20 wired headphones. Sure, AirPods have better BT protocol, but things will overall improve with BT 5.0 and whatever is after that.

Re:The premise is wrong

[PIBM]

I have 3 sets of Sennheiser HD7 DJ, and 3 sets of HD 558. Those are highly comfortable headphones, and depending on what I`m using them for I'll use the open air, or closed one. Long enough wires, exchangeable between both types (yeah, 3 of each is still on the low side, and I can switch the one plugged on my computer without having to go change the cable behind the desk where my computer is stuffed), and they sound great to me. This gives me 6 1/8" and 3 1/4" cable.

I don't have to recharge my headphones, I'm not putting lipo batteries in my ears (what could go bad ??? I've had 2 lipo fires so far and I'm already keeping my phone out of my pockets as much as possible), I'm not having any latency issues when watching a movie on my phone/tablet, and none of the bad quality of bluetooth sound. I've tried liking it with bluetooth pairing in my car but between having sync issues, losing the connection, randomly pausing the music, and sounding like an AM radio channel, I've moved back to a 1/8" jack and could not be happier.

Re:The premise is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

No it fucking doesnÃ(TM)t, so stop with the BS.

Yes it fucking does, so stop with your marketing BS. Just for a start non-replaceable batteries and deliberately fragile hardware causing planned obsolescence.

Buy the good ones,

ie. Buy the expensive, proprietary, ones. Yet another reason why bluetooth continues to suck.

Re:The premise is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a stupid motherfucker that's not only wrong, but also types his posts in Microsoft Word like a pussy. Fuck you.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[gweihir]

Here is a hint from the actual real world: Even low-end audio DACs are much better than what a human can hear these days.

Replace? I thought they support both . . .

[Wrath0fb0b]

I can't see any major player removing support for Bluetooth Audio. So consumers will end with a choice of either using BT, using a legacy headphone jack through a (hopefully free in the box) adapter or using a new one.

This is kind of the opposite of a walled garden, as I understand the term. Here consumers have a choice. In order to be a walled garden, they would have to start locking out all the non-proprietary methods.

Re:Replace? I thought they support both . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

One factor no one includes in these articles: there are protective phone cases that include headphone jacks.

I'm guessing that BlueTooth headphones will only experience a slight uptick in sales. Most consumers will use an adapter or a case with integrated a 3.5mm jack because wired earbuds/headphones are far superior.

I know these guys want to make money, but did they not think at all about what consumers are most likely to do?

Yet another thing to keep charged...

[freak0fnature]

Just what I need, to make sure my bluetooth device is charged regularly...and another device to buy and throw away when the battery fails, When my earbuds pop out, I don't have to go looking for them because they are still attached to the phone.

since they got to get rid of the headphone jack

[FudRucker]

just make the new generation of headphones and earbuds use the micro-usb or usb-C or whatever usb the phones will have, it cant be that difficult to send audio that way, and we should not have to buy a 1/8 inch mini plug to usb adapter, include the adapter with the phone or make earbuds or headphones already compatible, (bluetooth is sort of a disappointment for music and streaming audio) about all bluetooth is good for is voice communications, the music stream is just a tad bit too much bandwidth for bluetooth to handle IMO

Re:since they got to get rid of the headphone jack

[JohnFen]

Yeah, but then you can't use the USB jack for anything else. We're still talking about a loss of functionality.

Re:since they got to get rid of the headphone jack

[FudRucker]

it has data in & data out, it just needs to be smart enough to sense a headphone when plugged in and pipe audio to it when connected, it can still be used to transfer other data and charge the battery, it just can only do one of those things at a time (not multitask capable)

Re:since they got to get rid of the headphone jack

[JohnFen]

it just can only do one of those things at a time (not multitask capable)

Yes, this is exactly what I was talking about.

Big difference

[Albanach]

There's a pretty huge difference between saying for best audio quality you need headphones made by us, our subsidiaries, or those who are paying us a licensing fee (Apple) and "Seamless fast pairing? You need Android N or higher, which most Android phones don't have." (Google).

Google haven't added something to the phone that means only headphones they produce or license can work, instead they added something to a headphone. And others could make headphones that do the same thing without paying special fees to Google. And the OS requirement doesn't mean you need a Nexus or Pixel phone, it could be from Motorola, or Samsung or LG or countless others.

   

Re:Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn Google shill. FOAD.

The free market IS working

[Brannon]

The problem is that you have requirements that the rest of the world doesn't care about.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[David_Hart]

What a bunch of bunk. Bluetooth audio is fantastic. They've even got lossless Bluetooth audio nowadays (aptX), so there is no quality lost. By moving the audio DAC and sensitive analog circuitry away from the noisy CPU and mass storage, we could potentially achieve even greater Signal to Noise Ratio. The consumer will only have to pay for a high end DAC -once- in his lifetime instead of paying for a mediocre DAC in every phone, tablet, and computer he buys in his life.

Every pair of headphones I buy inevitably ends up breaking a wire internally after so many uses, besides having those wires constantly in the way. Hell yeah I want to move away from the 3.5mm audio jack!

AptX-HD (lossless), from what I read, requires more bandwidth than Bluetooth can provide. If you are using Bluetooth, then you are stuck with AptX (lossy), not AptX-HD. While AptX is better than most of the current codecs, it still pales in comparison to analog.

An insane argument

[SuperKendall]

You are seriously arguing that the current situation is bad because both Google and Apple now offer easier pairing options for wireless headphones????

This is INSANE. Anyone can still use wired headsets for that vintage feel of letting your phone dictate the quality of audio you listen to. Only now you ALSO have the option of various levels of wireless convenience, and various levels of headphone quality as they can choose to include a higher end DAC.

All arguments against removing the headphone jack ironically seem to be complaining because users now have more choices, not less... listen to what you are saying people!

Re:An insane argument

[JohnFen]

All arguments against removing the headphone jack ironically seem to be complaining because users now have more choices, not less... listen to what you are saying people!

Your statement would be true if people were complaining that phones support Bluetooth audio. But nobody is complaining about that.

What we're complaining about is the loss of functionality, not the existence of other technologies. In other words, the complaint really is about having less choice.

Re:An insane argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who complain are not complaining about the new choices, but what it represents. iPhones will dictate the market, because masses will upgrade no matter what, and they will switch to bluetooth headphones even though they are inferior and other manufacturers will follow. Now with Google behind this "choice" it becomes a more real reality.

I suspect there's really a minority who care about headphone jack and minority who care about wireless convenience and masses don't give a smallest shit about it. The difference is that before, you could choose which one you wanted and soon you will be forced into wireless.

Also regarding your argument about DACs, it matters so little because bluetooth compresses the audio so much, that any DAC is going to be good enough. You could of course go with aptX, but the brave people of apple were not brave enough to support it =)

Re:An insane argument

[SuperKendall]

What we're complaining about is the loss of functionality,

So just to be really super ultra amazingly clear here, let me restate my argument simply:

HEY YOU RETARDS THERE IS NO LOSS OF FUNCTIONALITY YOU CAN USE AN ADAPTOR FOR ANALOG AUDIO WITH ZERO LOSS OF QUALITY.

Re:An insane argument

[JohnFen]

And that adapter uses the USB slot, so it can't be used for other things. That's a loss of functionality.
You could, of course, use a USB-C hub to connect multiple devices, but then you've added yet another thing to carry around. That's a loss of functionality.
Plus, the Pixel 2 doesn't do analog audio through USB-C, so any audio device you plug into it has to has its own DAC. That's a loss of functionality.

An argument could be (and has been) made that the loss of functionality is minor enough that people should just deal with it. But an argument that there's no loss of functionality is simply false.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of bunk. Bluetooth audio is fantastic.

Every Bluetooth headset I've ever tried sounded hollow like compression knob turned up to 11. While this is easily fixed with more bandwidth / better codecs I'm not so sure other shortcomings are so easily resolved.

Cutting out/interference from environment or obstructions, having to waste time recharging more shit, screwing with connection/pairing, Bluetooth attack vectors, remote tracking and wasting money... headphone jack on the other hand is cheap and just works.

They've even got lossless Bluetooth audio nowadays (aptX), so there is no quality lost.

I have nothing with aptX. No transmitters or receivers that support it. My desire to pursuit proprietary codecs doomed to market failure is zero. AAC is good enough moving forward.

By moving the audio DAC and sensitive analog circuitry away from the noisy CPU and mass storage, we could potentially achieve even greater Signal to Noise Ratio.

What noise? I don't hear any noise.

The consumer will only have to pay for a high end DAC -once- in his lifetime instead of paying for a mediocre DAC in every phone, tablet, and computer he buys in his life.

In 2017 good enough DACs to drive stereo headphones cost a penny.

Every pair of headphones I buy inevitably ends up breaking a wire internally after so many uses, besides having those wires constantly in the way. Hell yeah I want to move away from the 3.5mm audio jack!

This assumption Bluetooth headphones are indestructible and a single pair will last a lifetime is not a believable statement. Are there even any Bluetooth headsets for sale with a user replaceable battery or are they designed with the intention of users throwing them in the trash and buying a new one when it dies? Do they contain field upgradable SDRs and DSPs to adapt to evolving standards? How does a Bluetooth headset last a lifetime? Where can I buy a Bluetooth headset that will last a lifetime?

Personally I have used both Bluetooth and headphone jack and refuse to purchase a phone without the headphone jack.

Are there good BT headphones?

[No Longer an AC]

A few months ago I bought Samsung U-Pro wireless headphones and granted they were cheaper than my 10 year old wired headphones which cost 10 times as much but the BT headphones weren't even as good as the headphones that came with my Walkman in 1985.

Through my laptop they sounded extremely tinny. Maybe it's just Samsung who I should know better than to buy anything from but I couldn't believe how bad they sounded. They sounded a little better through my phone which is NOT a Samsung - I read something after purchase which suggested Samsung phones have something built in which takes advantage of some bullshit buzzwords Samsung was garbling about. I'm kind of skeptical of that, but what good are headphones if they rely on software or hardware from a specific vendor?

And even at full volume I can't drown out even the muzak they play in a grocery store.

Both laptop and phone use the same version of bluetooth. I love the idea of wireless and I've used BT earpieces for voice calls which weren't horrible but for music? Is there anything good? I don't mean super hi-fi or anything but just adequate.

I'm inclined to want a headphone jack for now and I almost bought a Pixel a year ago just so I could have the latest version of Android but now that my phone is a year older and the new Pixel has no headphone jack it's a non-starter for me.

Trading one inconvenience for another

[Anonymous Coward]

The removal of the headphone jack is trading up the inconvenience of wired audio with the inconvenience of having to recharge headphone batteries. Last year's models offered the choice of either inconvenience which is great. Personally, I prefer a wired option that will always just work versus a wireless one that may die at some inconvenient time when I can't do much about it.

Re:Fuck bump stocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant socks. Socks for fuck bumps.

Re:Fuck bump stocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant socks. Socks for fuck bumps.

You wear those socks like condoms???

Can the free market fix this?

[walterbyrd]

Apple and Google competitors. Just start buying from companies that don't suck as bad.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[thegreatbob]

If I was forced into a situation where no analog audio outputs were available, I'd have to opt for some sort of external bluetooth+DAC combined with existing analog headphones, provided tolerable codecs could be had. Best of both worlds, imo. Easy interfacing to any existing home theater equipment, and broad support for audio sources. I'm also averse to stuffing LiPos into my earholes (mild sarcasm), but there's nothing requiring that here anyhow. I think too many people try to present the false dichotomy in which if one wants 3.5mm jacks, they automatically abhor Bluetooth.

Another alternative is software to stream the audio to another machine over WiFi, if audio quality is a problem but latency is not.

Re:Fuck bump stocks

[Anonymous Coward]

No, dude. Not like.

Re:bullshit

[Fly Swatter]

no, it won't happen because consumers will want to use a variety of headphones

Until they cant.

also, bluetooth whilst not perfect works pretty-well these days in most cases

Bluetooth will never beat the reliability of a wire, which by the way, also doesn't need it's own battery and charger.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[thegreatbob]

That is actually one thing I have applied pulseaudio to with good effect... merging sound outputs from multiple machines with no audio hardware to my main machine at the time, which was running windows. Very low latency, and it was not all that awful to configure.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[thegreatbob]

Output filtering is probably a relevant concern; a lot of cheap hardware really skimps there.

Huh?

[nospam007]

I got bluetooth headphones from Aliexpress for 12 bucks and they're better than the white wired free ones.
Why would anybody shell out lots of dough for a cable?

Problems with BT....

[TemporalBeing]

...honestly, I keep BT off most of the time unless I really need to use it as that saves the battery power. Not to mention there's a nice little hack going around that's enabled via BT.

I'll keep my wired, 1/8" jack than you.

I hope new bluetooth is better

[AdamFistler]

Right now my bluetooth headset sucks walking around in center city Philadelphia. It keeps cutting in and out and is very annoying. I dont know if it has to do with the number of bluetooth devices around me. Makes listening music threw them a trying experience. So I use the headphone jack to get around it. But out on day hikes bluetooth headset works fine.

Re: bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody has to be the stupid one who pays the sticker price.

Re:Fuck bump stocks

[Anonymous Coward]

So he's the one buying ankle socks...

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[T.E.D.]

Hmmm. I hope I didn't drive down the moderation on this. Yeah, it was phrased a bit trolly, and I (IMHO) had a valid qualm, but the rest of the info in here I would have given an "Informative" for if I still had my points.

factory firmware forever

[epine]

Older used smartphones will be on the market for a very, very long time. There's a store 500 yards away from me right now that does nothing but sell such phones.

Complete with the latest and greatest vendor-supported security patches?

Don't you mean flip phones? Because many of those are just fine running factory firmware forever and ever.

Re:factory firmware forever

[JohnFen]

I mean smartphones. The store I mentioned sells both sorts.

Since I replace the operating system on my phones anyway, I don't care about security (or other) patches. I won't be using them anyway, as I just upgrade the OS myself.

Re: bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares, snowflake, kill yourself.

So What? These arn't sweeping markets.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't why I am bothering to post this, other than I am bored today.

What percent of users of cell phones are audiophiles? When I listen to music, I turn on my speakers and amplifier and sit and listen carefully to music. There is no way that the Mini-RCA plug is going away. It is entrenched into the audio hardware industry. Don't get me wrong, I do have a pair of Airpods, and I do like them, but... they are what they are in-ear headsets. They are used when people have other things to do, and want to have some background music. They don't filter out noise, they just provide some music when you want to try to drown out distractions. They are not for serious music listening.

Iphones and Google phones make up a rather small component of the global phone market. They are just too expensive for most people to justify buying. The rest of the world uses Android-based phones that are pretty good in most aspects and have an Mini-RCA plug. What difference does it make if they are experimenting with different flavors of non-standard Bluetooth? They are not going to destroy the profits of a specialty company that makes "High-End" headsets, and I really doubt that Apple and Google are going to be adding expensive DACs to their phones, nor are users going to want to transfer huge high-def audio files into their phones.

Yes, I suppose some audiophiles would like to, but they are not the market that Apple and Google are going after.... nor would the generic "Android Phone" manufacturer.

Re:bullshit

[pastafazou]

will never beat the reliability of a wire, which by the way, also doesn't need it's own battery and charger.

And that's exactly why cell phones failed to make a dent in the telecom market.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[epine]

While this is an interesting argument, I'd like to point out, as someone who has been using BT headphones for the last 3 years, that I have to replace headphones way more often than cellular devices. I think I'm on my 3rd set with this phone, and the right bud on this one has a short, so the third is not long for this world either.

Seriously, your inability to identify a quality vendor after three long years is germane to this discussion?

What you actually mean is that the replacement cycle for the bud is by no means guaranteed to be any longer than for the phone if you're too lazy to do proper homework.

Of course, proper homework is also a cost, and it might (in some cases) be rational not to bother with this, except for that little phrase "high end DAC", because I've never bought a "high end" anything where I didn't do proper research beforehand.

So you argument boils down to: assume you're already trapped in the disposable technology mindset, then this too is not a free lunch.

For the rest of us, much of the debate here concerns our resentment about being nickel and dimed into the disposable technology mindset against our established preferences.

I also own a Sony voice recorder, very high quality microphones, good enough for the highest certification of speech recognition, since before speech recognition was worth shit. I could dictate on my phone, but I prefer this. It also has rock solid pitch and playback speed adjustments, using buttons that always stay put.

However, it doesn't have Bluetooth and never will.

Great, now I get to carry both kinds.

Whatever happened to tools that were good for one thing only with convenient, baseline interoperability?

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[Anonymous Coward]

heh of course, we find the one guy that found a usecase where pulseaudio worked well for him and lo and behold it was to a windows box.

That tells you everything you need to know about the problems with systemd too

Please no more useless unhappiness.

[Futurepower(R)]

Please don't post comments to stories if you don't like the stories.

Second Generation compression

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with audio over Bluetooth is that the audio is double compressed. If you play an AAC file at 256kbps, the stream gets decoded to PCM and then gets re-encoded to AAC or AptX or whatever lossy codec the headphones support. Even if you use an iPhone with Bluetooth headphones that support AAC, you still have transcoding; The phone does not send the original AAC stream to the headphones because the phone needs to dynamically alter the bit rate depending on the quality of the Bluetooth link. Until this situation improves, wired headphones will always sound better than Bluetooth. First generation lossy compression is not noticeable, for most people at high bit rates, but second generation compression totally is noticeable for most people.

Latency isn't the only problem with this....

[rainmouse]

Even if the magically fixed bluetooth latency lots of new problems will certainly arise. Surely if everyone started using bluetooth it would cause interference? My wireless headphones already stutter and fail whenever a Taxi drives past.
I realise google probably wish for an invisible UI and replace mobile with a pair of very losable, wireless earphones controlled with just your voice. Great for some, but for me and the wife, our Scottish accents rendered a recent purchase of Amazon Alexa, absolutely fucking worthless.

https://youtu.be/5FFRoYhTJQQ

Re:Latency isn't the only problem with this....

[Zaelath]

Lol, wish Ah hud some points fur ye.

cancer concern

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought rf transmitter up against your head was bad because it was linked to brain tumors. thats why speaker or other hands free like headphones are recommended... Now, we are going to but the transmitter in the headphones... didn't we just undo 1 of the reasons someone would want headphones?
I get that bluetooth is weaker than cell transmitter but any studies on this?

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[gweihir]

I doubt it. This stuff is all digital PCM these days. Unless you have some bizarre resonances, the headphones will correct any missing filtering, as they are basically mechanical low-passes called. I used to be one of these people that had dedicated sound cards and I even used to replace cheap OpAmps and drivers on them. Not anymore. The low-end stuff that comes with mainboards these days is quite enough. Of course, I am not talking about the extremely cheap stuff here that may not even have 16 bit resolution or come with max sampling rates below 44kHz, just the cheap stuff.

1st county problem

[Anonymous Coward]

So we know what first world problems are. This is a first county problem. Those rich ones on the coasts, around the major metro areas. I just replaced my old s5 with a Moto something (5?) for $150 on Amazon. Guess what. It's got a headphone jack.

I *will be bummed* when it's time to replace this Moto and I can't find a headphone jack.

BTW, use Bluetooth in the car, so I'm not a Luddite, just travel a lot, and a cheap earbud cord just works all the time. And,oh yeah , it's cheap.

1000 € devices ? No Jack ? Locked battery ?

[AncalagonTotof]

Do they want to drive consumers mad ?
Count me in.
I want to keep my 3 years old Note 4 as long as possible. Any news from LineageOS on this one ?

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[Moldiver]

AptX uses the same codec many home cinema fans value a lot in DTS. It's insane that over Bt it should suddenly suck...

aptX-HD is NOT lossless.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, aptX-Hd is NOT lossless.
It is simply 24b it in the same bandwidth as the 16bit aptX, with a slightly better codec.
ie: it is almost completely marketing.

The VERY BEST lossless codec compress almost 2:1, aptX-HD is 4:1, it has to be to fit in BT bandwidth.

There are NO lossless BT codecs.

Re: bullshit

[desdinova 216]

or, they're doing because bump stocks has nothing to do with headphone jacks or bluetooth

Re: bullshit

[cyber-vandal]

Cell phones are more convenient and flexible than landlines. Bluetooth headphones are not more convenient than the just as portable wired headphones.

Why isn't it the obvious replacement?

[Junta]

, the obvious replacement isn't another wire with a proprietary connector like Apple's Lightning or the many incompatible and strange flavors of USB-C audio. It's Bluetooth. And Bluetooth continues to suck,

Why isn't a connector the obvious replacement? What do you mean incompatible and strange flavors of usb-c, what the hell are you talking about?

Re: bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I think that we should permit everybody to own as many bump stocks as they want. Just don't let them have access to guns.

Did they invent power over Bluetooth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they fix latency? Connection delays? Disconnects when the phone is below the waist? How are they going to replace the FM antenna function?

Anyway, I couldn't care less what they do in some walled garden. I don't go into walled gardens because it's hard to get out of them.

Poorly Performing Prophet

[pubwvj]

So I'm supposed to believe someone who has a history of getting things wrong... Nope.

I love not having a headphone jack. Well, actually, my iPodTouch has a headphone jack but I don't use it. I use the BlueTooth to a nice set of $50 Bluetooth and noise canceling headphones. Works great!

Have to call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

"the combination iPhone / W1 experience is obviously superior to anything else on the market." is proven false millions of times by any number of plugged-in earphones.

Re: bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

If you learn how to negotiate you can save quite a bit.

OH my a CODEC ?

[johnjones]

some people dont understand and complain about

1/ pairing bluetooth - this is the manufacturer not following guidelines

2/ Audio "quality" - simply you need either aptX or AAC in your headphones AND phone/device otherwise it degrades to a low bitrate codec

people simply dont understand that the codec matters and complain their MP3 does not sound as good... and it wont on standard bluetooth because the codec between the headset and device is built for low bandwidth

look on the spec for a AAC for your bluetooth speaker if you want a decent connection

Re:OH my a CODEC ?

[TheGratefulNet]

I've never seen aac on bt audio devices. it must be an apple thing.

apt-x low latency is the new standard; apt-x HD is even newer.

those are the only ones that are not vendor specific.

Re:OH my a CODEC ?

[johnjones]

you can follow this to find out what your phone supports :

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/26410/how-do-i-determine-which-a2dp-codecs-my-phone-supports-is-currently-using

this list is common now :
#define A2DP_CODEC_SBC 0x00
#define A2DP_CODEC_MPEG12 0x01
#define A2DP_CODEC_MPEG24 0x02

thats SBC, MP3 and AAC

regards

John Jones

Removing holes

[spinitch]

Sleeker housing should last longer. Less warranty issues, tiny bit more space. Better water , dust protection etc... I prefer a cable for power so donâ(TM)t need to bother with charging headset. I am ok with a dongle but prefer the old fashion headphone jack, but aware it is a bulky and damage prone hole on the sleek handsets. If decent selection of USB C or lightning direct fed headphones available I will consider buying for convenience. Boo to wireless headphones only.

BT nfc pairing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seamless fast pairing? It's been available to Android 4 users for years now with the NFC tag to properly secure the devices without needing to trust anyone or anything else.

Re:1000 € devices ? No Jack ? Locked battery

[green1]

You're not the only one. I'm keeping my note 4 until someone comes out with a phone that can at least match it's functionality.

Wider screen than the new notes, replaceable battery, HDMI (MHL) output, headphone jack, expandable storage. Those are just table stakes. I also like the IR blaster, and textured back that makes it easy to hold without dropping.

Nothing new is at all appealing in comparison.

Re: Fuck bump stocks

[Reverend Green]

I'm not sure if this is cheap shitty DNC propaganda, or brilliant NRA propaganda.

Bluetooth delay

[soundguy4film]

Ironic that Bluetooth is so crappy that we're going backwards. In film production video is delayed and is in real time. So backwards that the final display mechanism reversed that.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[mathew7]

Oh...so you never got to the Li-Ion (or whatever battery) wear. I still have working wired headphones from early 2000. BT headphones that old would need 3-4 battery replacements (which would force you to replace the whole headphone, as good luck finding the right batteries).

I never understood the rationale of BT headphones for music: you have a 2nd battery to keep track of (and increase the weight) and you drain 2 batteries when using them. When the market of no-jack devices will be big enough, I'm sure the stand-alone media player business will rise again.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[mathew7]

So, I built an internet radio station on my LAN (with FLAC and 320kbps MP3 output)......and some MP3s sound HORRIBLE over the mp3 stream. That's one of the reason I hate BT audio (for music at least) even if I cannot "hear" artifacts, I don't know when I will get something that will.

Re:Bluetooth audio is great

[thegreatbob]

:) Is one of my best anecdotals for taking quiet swipes at Lennart, etc.

I don't get the problem.

[RockDoctor]

So, no headphone jack. but people only use headphones out of consideration for other people - otherwise they shout down their phone for the other end to shout louder, or crank up the volume to drown out the screeching din of the 7 other people in the room listening to their "music" over the air. Is there any credible use-case for in-ear loudspeakers at all?